Interview with a 9/11 survivor

hi how are you i'm good how are you good good thank you so much for asking me to do this for you i really appreciate it yeah absolutely i you know um one of those people that i'm on my phone all the time and i was just looking through tick-tock and i sometimes you just see kind of stupid stuff on there yeah and dances and all that stuff and so i was just scrolling through there and i saw your post and i was like there is no i was like that is wild because i personally don't know anybody that had a direct involvement in 9 11 i know people who talk about their family members who were supposed to work that day or family members that live in new york city but weren't directly like part of it and so i thought it would be so cool to be able to sit down with you and have you tell your story about actually being in the north tower during the attacks and what your life ended up being like because of that yeah absolutely i'm i'm happy to do that i can start from where i was that morning um generally people in my office building i wouldn't used to work for a firm that was it was called sidley austin brown and wood at the time and now it's called sidley austin and generally the um workday would start at 9 30. but i was kind of like the it was my first job out of college and so i was kind of like that eager person after the summer coming back into the city i actually went to school in new york city too i went to barnard college um and after graduation i went home to cleveland and then i got a call that they were looking um i used to work there while i was illegal while i was in college like part-time and so they called me and they said they needed a full-time person so i was excited to get back to the city and um my boss had actually left september 10th and he's like it's all yours you know you know you know what to do you know you're kind of like the head legal assistant now of um you know jokingly just of the public finance department so i got really excited so i wanted to be there early um and so i got in at probably around i have to say around 8 43 or something like that and um i got to the stair the um elevators and so the ele because the building was so tall there's an express elevator that went from zero to 44. and then you got out of the elevators and then they're like three separate they're a bunch of different elevator banks so it'll say um like 45 or 46 there's an escalator that went to 45 and they'll say like 46 to 60 or something like that and my floor was the 56th floor so i went in that little hallway to to get up to the 56th floor and i hit the elevator button to go up and at that time the plane hit the building um and of course i never it never occurred to me that it was a commercial jetliner going into our building and what it felt like was a was an earthquake um it felt like the entire building shook and then kind of dropped um that's what it felt like so um just anything you see like a you know footage of an earthquake or something that's what it felt like on the inside being inside the building um and i mean i was scared i was i think it'd be scary at any age but i was 22 years old i um i didn't have any family there you know just like literally a small town girl um and um coming to live in new york city and i i i felt scared but at the same time i was like i gotta get back i gotta get upstairs to go to my people because i'm sure my my co-workers are you know up on 56th and my firm had like the 54th floor 56th floor 57th the 59th maybe 60th something i can't i can't remember which floors they have but i was like if i see anybody i'd just be happy to be um with my people so i kept hitting the elevator button to go up but it kept clicking off and on it wasn't coming it was just flicker because it wasn't working um because all the the plane must have hit the lines at the top so i mean and i'm i'm lucky for that because i probably in my mind was thinking like i just want to be with my coworkers i'll just keep trying to get up you know get upstairs until i can see somebody i know um but in that time i could see probably i think it was it had to have been like a 250 pound man taking his shoes off and running in the other direction um to get to the stairwell i was looking at him i was like if he's scared then i probably should just follow him um then i should probably be probably be scared so he people started panicking um when i looked out because there i don't know if you've seen the old buildings but they're like rails that go like this up and down the the twin towers and they're little windows so they're like slim windows that that um are going up and down the building so as soon as i turned and i looked i mean you just see paper like like tons and tons of paper flying out of the building and i was like this is some kind of i guess i've never been in an earthquake this is this is what it looks like you know so it's just very odd that all these newspapers were flying um and i get to the emergency stairwell there's a gentleman and the gentleman i followed inside was inside um and then when i turned i could see ladies in high heels like taking off their high heels and um just to be able to run so we were in the emergency we were in the stairwell i didn't know anyone um because again i never made it up to work and um so this is from the 44th floor i'm heading down um and please feel free to stop me at any time to ask questions or anything like that otherwise i can just keep rambling um and i had at that time you know we obviously didn't have the smartphones or iphones or anything like that but we had i had a motorola flip phone um so i took it out and i my mom would call me so i started the job probably in august i came back to new york city in august and um she would call me every day at 8 45 in my office to make sure i was sitting down in my office um and to make sure that i had that i had made it to work like her baby girl was going to be in new york city and she definitely wanted to make sure that i was okay so i was thinking like when i'm looking at my phone oh my gosh my mom's going to be really worried about me because i'm not sitting in my desk um and she must have called me by now so i am trying to get a line out of the phone it's completely nothing there's no lines getting out of the phone because at that time and we've just the technology is not as good as it is today and you know the telecommunications um was just it was 2001. so everybody's you know swamping the phone lines i can't get a dot i can't get a ringtone every time i would type in something it would just click off i don't even think it said failed it just wouldn't even work so um i'm heading down and around probably the 35th floor and things were moving pretty calmly by the way like people were pretty calm there and there was like chatter behind me you know some businessmen were saying i hope we can still make enough i hope this situation is over soon i i need we have to meet up for our 11 o'clock meeting um so people thought nobody had really known what had happened um people thought they were going to go back to their meetings at 11 o'clock so it was just and so i think that kind of conversation helped keep everybody calm like nobody really um thought it was this terrorist attack so around i i you know my memory is foggy as to which floor it was but there were women that were getting off on the floors and just putting their hands on the emergency like the door that goes outside from the emergency stairwell back onto the floor they're putting their hands on the door like and they're like oh this this floor isn't hot they didn't smell smoke and so they would get off on that floor i don't know why i think they just thought like hey if there's we were told that there was some kind of kitchen fire um and because there was a kitchen on the 45th floor and the explosion it seemed so close to us when we were on the 44th floor that that was some kind of rumor that was spreading around it was just a kitchen fire so some ladies got off on the 35th floor then one floor below that there was for some reason a locked door in the emergency stairwell so we had to wait for someone to come up like it was you know a custodian um to come up or come down with somebody to just open the door so we could keep heading down and so we were waiting there for um you know what seemed like an eternity probably was more like five to eight minutes um but that's that was precious time at that time now that we think about it um but he literally he didn't know what key it was we tried every key finally that he opened the door and the emergency still was very it was just very strange to me um that there would even be one there and i'm sure future plans have probably taken out that door completely um but we we kept heading down um and the firefighter um i mean he was such a special man but i tripped down a few flights after getting out of that door i tripped down a few not flights stairs um after that door after the door was open and he came up and he you know he lifted me up from the from when i fallen and he said you know just try to keep moving stay calm move you know move quickly you're going to get out of here and then um in my mind i kind of was like of course i'm getting out of here this is a kitchen fire you know that kind of thing but obviously he had known what had happened um and i mean there were a couple of firefighters there they're all wearing i mean they probably from what i hear their gear was probably 110 pounds on their back i mean i how they climbed this even one flight of stairs was just beyond me was just amazing but um they were heading up process um there were a couple burn victims brought down um and they did not look good i mean and it seemed like it seemed like wow this is this is some kitchen fire they're talking about like this seems pretty serious and there was just a woman covered in soot and it was just all black ash um as we kept heading down there um the electricity started going out and the water pipes had had some kind of pipe had burst so there was water filling up in the stairwells and there was also loose wiring so what happens with the loose wiring i mean there were sparks so everyone what everyone was really worried about was the sparks hitting the wires um sorry the sparks hitting the water and um what was scary about that was that the lights kept flickering on and off and we were all holding each other's shoulders at one point because we couldn't see in the stairwell um and that was all very it was very scary because if we were all holding each other's shoulders and these sparks are coming you know by the water we're just like a chain of you're all gonna get electrocuted but there's really no choice so we're just trying to think like what is the best case what is the least risk here at this point um and you know again i'm not sure how the wires became exposed or if it was a you know it must have been the cause of the the um the attack but it was just strange to get to this lower and lower into the building how things had also started to unravel very quickly um so we were you know walking through a little puddle you know puddles of water but enough to be um they started to get they started to flood um so we get out at the bottom and this is this at this point because it was 8 49 on the first plane head at this point it must have been and we can't remember the timing but by the time i got out it was it was an hour afterwards so it was probably like 9 49 um and as we're getting out of the building and the the thing is it was such a it was such a for people who were able to get into the emergency stairwell from at least where i was it was such a calm um and well organized uh escape plan as soon as we got out there was there were firemen saying you know go around this building everybody just and keeping everybody calm and they were just standing there so calmly um and just guiding people out towards the back to the water um and telling people to just go that route don't stop keep moving um and i remember looking outside of the building there used to be this beautiful like a globe looking fa um structure in the mississippi statue type thing it was in the middle of and right in the front of the world trade center would look like a globe or something like that and it was completely crushed it was completely crushed now we had the chance to just look outside for a second and then you could see it was very it was just uh just a gruesome sight at that point um because you could see people who had tried to who didn't make it um and i was thinking and this in in my mind the entire time i was like there's something something they're not telling us um because this doesn't happen from some explosion in the kitchen um we finally got out to the back i had a chance at that point i was standing with a couple of women who were just looking up at the building and you could just see a huge gaping hole in both buildings now at this point um when we were inside you heard something you know i i skipped over this part but when i was inside the building i could hear the other one get hit so like you could you could hear that noise um but still we didn't know what it was you know i was like oh nobody had any clue as to what was as to what was happening and i guess it's a really good thing and it's a great thing because it kept everybody very very calm um because had somebody said you know there have been two commercial jetliners plowing into our buildings i think that there would probably be a lot more chaos a lot of people probably trampling over each other to get get out of the building um thankfully you know we didn't have smartphones in some like silver lining type way because how we just googled it you know would have come up in the kind of situation we were in um us um but founders were fantastic they never once led on as to what was going on they um got us out of harm's way very quickly um and as i started to walk north the second building that was hit it was the south tower it it fell first and so um if you've seen footage of people running i was one of those people running um along with everyone else who had got out the building so we had just gotten out i was able to look at both and i saw the big gaping hole in the fir where i came out of on the first building and then i saw one in the second and i was thinking what the heck is happening here um i re and then you know ran ran north to get away from the building um and i had no idea why why such a thing it happened you know it was just very odd to me um and at the time i ran into a friend of mine um we used to ride the bus in together um and it was miraculous that we just ran into each other and um and then at that time i was told what it had what had happened and i couldn't believe it i could not believe that that is what had happened to our um to the buildings and the second one fell first um i think it only stood for 40 some minutes um after it was hit maybe not even that long maybe around 40 minutes um because if you look at the footage and the way the second one was hit it was cut at an angle and it kind of went through the lower floors than the first one that was hit the first one went straight on into the top um and i guess had a little bit more time and stability to stay up longer than the second one which was cut at an angle and also lower so it just couldn't hang on as as long um so finally my dad said it was two hours i think it was three hours it's neither here nor there i used a pay phone to call my folks um and i finally got through and at that point both buildings had had fallen um and this is where i feel worse for my parents because they were watched and my siblings my brother was 13 at the time my sister wasn't my sister was actually in her freshman college in new york um at the same college i was at and um you're just watching it at home not knowing what to do and at least i was inside not knowing what was happening and having control of the situation um like i knew i had to get out i knew what i what i knew was that there was a pigeon fire and i was just calm about it um it was only when the water started coming up from the bottom that i was like this is very odd you know like these these thoughts of this isn't a kitchen fire started coming into my head um otherwise i mean everything was so laid out and i had control i felt i had control of the situation i knew i needed to get out whatever it was um whatever this whatever the firefighter had said you know just move out um so i did that you know and it was you just they were it was just so um again it just seems so organized like the people who were they were all very well versed first responders were very well reversed in this emergency evacuation um despite the fact they probably never would have imagined something like this would ever happen um so i did feel terrified for my folks because they they thought i didn't make it um my dad was already making arrangements um like we just because at that time i think they thought once both buildings fell that nobody had made it out i think it was estimated the next day that 10 000 people had died um i think i mean it was a horrifying number anyway but it wasn't 10 000 i think it was closer to 2900 but closer to 3 000. um so you know for my folks i mean that i think it was just being they were they were relieved but they also i mean we all went through this where we just felt like that survivor's guilt um and i felt that i felt that for a long long time i still do september on september 11th i still do periodically when i think about it um and i think that that post um really helped a lot of people from just reading the comments i felt that it helped a lot of people but it really helped me selfishly because i wondered about the kids who lost their parents that day um you know i was single i didn't have children my sis i had two i have two siblings they still had each other my parents still had two kids so for me to have survived it was that feeling of why me you know like i it it was um it was really difficult for me to understand because i just didn't think it was fair um and the thread the the thread of the comments um was really special to me because there were children on there who are now adults um who said you know uh i lost my dad um there was a woman um who just posted on her tick tock she said um and i think she's she's since removed it just for personal reasons but she had um she had posted um some footage that she received that was just recently found of her father in the south tower trying to help people down um the elevator obviously wasn't working he was trying to help people down the stairwell and it's it's his last moments and he she has that um audio of it and um just to just to connect with her was um it really touched me because i've i've always wondered over the years like you not not knowing anyone who's been at people obviously because i worked with folks there and i continued to work with them um after this all happened our firm moved to the east midtown uh east side of midtown um after this all happened so i was i was lucky to still have a job and have a place to work um but uh you know it was after i moved from new york i you know i came back to cleveland and went to law school and married my husband and we had kids and i moved to new york and again and always thought to connect with or try to connect with folks but you know life happens and this really was nice for me because you know i've thought about these people who i don't know um but hoped that they were okay and um i think it was it was really good i've and i feel like those people have also reached out a bit and wanted to hear more and you know hoped that maybe the firefighter was probably you know somebody that they knew and i hope so too i mean it's just so hard to tell who that person was because at the time you i didn't know what was happening um and with all the chaos once you got out you know and there's no way he would have made it out he was heading upstairs it's it's hard there's a lot of details there and you find out the ladder but there were so many different departments in in that building and i think it would be hard to determine which firefighter which it wasn't which stairwell at the time um and then there were multiple with the firefighter that had helped me so it's um it's one that is uh difficult i think to identify but he'll always have a special place in my heart when you talk about in your pose about him helping you and then you're never seeing him again and wishing he knew yeah that he had given you a second chance and all the things that you've accomplished in your life and i was wondering if you could talk a little bit about um you know your daughters and your husband and what you would want him to see now yeah yeah um just have given me that second chance um just to give me a second chance at life i um you know i don't take a day for granted i'm very thankful for each new day i've been given i try to use it to my fullest um we celebrate my birthday on september 11th um you know my birthday is june 9th you know but it's just yeah i have two um and it's something that my dad that's just something my dad likes to really do and just to commemorate that day because it really is another another chance um at life and you know i'd like to i'd like i would love for him to see that because of him i stayed calm because of him i was able to get out because of him i've had a really happy life um and this is that's where the guilt starts coming in is because you know he probably had a family and i had children and uh you know and never got to see them again and it's one of those things that he's really a hero and really because of him and he didn't just save me he saved thousands of people um and i and i i just i truly hope that all families know that i think that they i think that probably gives them comfort um that they were that you know their husbands and wives were you know their brother or sisters were able to to to save these all these people and make it less um less as big of a tragedy as it is it it could have been more so without their help um and and their heroism so you know i i think that um it's something that i think it's not even just like successes in life it's just the happiness of life you know i've just tried to i've recently told my 11 year old about it i wasn't sure when it was a good time to do that um and then last year at school they started talking about it and i thought maybe since she already knows what it is now and i didn't tell her you know i might as well i might as well tell her what that you know what that day means um so uh i think yeah i think i would i would really just want him to know how happy um i've tried to be because of that and i've tried to definitely make each day count um and i know that i am very lucky um and that uh you know i'm hope i i hope obviously that his family knows that um you know how much how much joy he's probably given to me you know obviously um i have got to move on and and and go to law school and meet my husband and go on trips and have a great family and you know it's it's something that a lot of children a parent can't do because of what's happened um and the after effects of it are very very severe um and uh you know it's something i think about all the time um but in a in a space that's a comp in a in a place it comes from a good place there was a time when i wasn't able to have this conversation with you um but it's things like that post and hearing people's stories and um that's something i have not been able to do before you know social media i haven't been able to um be able to connect with so many people like that and i think that um you know having that outlet has been very helpful um so i hope that answers your question and when you think about your girls being twins and i know you referred to them in your posters is that something that you do you talk about that um openly like with other people about them being twisted you know what you raise a really good point i don't i don't talk about that with other people and i feel like also tick-tock is a place where you know you're you're um you feel that freedom to kind of to kind of you know go outside the lines a little bit right like you go outside of your comfort zone um it it take talk it's something that's totally different from instagram or facebook and uh you just feel a little bit uh i guess yeah a little bit more laid-back a little bit more comfortable uh you're you're with a group of people who um you know are a bit more open-minded than you'd find uh or a lot less uh you know free to be themselves i would say and so i i've referred to them i've never referred to them as that but if that answers your question i've never referred to them as like the twin towers on in instagram or facebook or even with friends i feel like i don't feel that they would judge me i just feel like they'd be like that one was weird you know like or uh or that's interesting you know or like you know and and the word like just you know just to be it's just like saying you know i just think you know that's a little strange for them and i don't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable that's the other thing like i'm always i'm not i'm worried about that so much but i don't want to bring up something where someone's gonna just be like oh now this lady made it awkward you know um and i just felt because it was a trend that was happening i and it was one that i i don't really do too many training things i'm a mom um i do do silly stuff yes but it was one thing that i just jumped on because it meant so much to me and i think about that day often so i thought hey this is a really good time to commemorate that um and i'm not sure if you noticed in the photo of the twins of my girls that they're standing in and i and it was complete um coincidence but they were standing like the towers are positioned um one the older one was in the front um and then the the younger one was in the back but they were exactly the same as how the twins the towers were positioned and so when i looked at the photo when i had taken it um it didn't occur to me and um i did do a post on facebook and on instagram on september 11th this was several years ago where i put the picture i actually have it right here um where i put this picture uh right next to my twins i never referred to them as the twin towers i just referred to that i just said you know and my own twins were born on such and such date and then when i looked at both photos i was like oh my gosh they're they're actually and i have tons of pictures of the the twins and i just decided to pick that one but when i was looking at them side by side i realized that um excuse me i realized that um they were standing the same way so it was just kind of cute and so when i was looking at it again and i was posting on tick tock i was like i was thinking you know this they're twin towers and um yes i think it's odd do i refer to them as that no um in conversation no i just felt um and i hesitated and so i'm glad you brought that up i did hesitate when i put it down when i wrote when i typed the text in there i was like i'm not sure how people are gonna take it and then i said that doesn't matter you know like it doesn't matter tick-tock always says like it doesn't matter you know like you should just post what you what comes to your mind it touches somebody in some way you should just do what you want so i just i i um i took that that to heart and i took the liberty to do that um so that's a very good question uh the answer is no i don't refer to them when i talk to other people about it but the answer is yes do i think about them that way yes i do think of the irony of the situation in fact they were born on 7-7 so that's like july 7th that is another like same numbers that kind of thing um but uh yes they are truly a blessing um i do think of how serendipitous that was um and this was to write that out and to actually take what was in my head that i keep to myself and put it in a text on a post like that was it was it was hard for me but i'm glad i did it it was one of those things that um i'd wanted to to say i refer to them to my you know like it was one of those things that was an inside kind of thing for me um but now it's out there well i think it's really interesting in your case that you have being a survivor you saw obviously people that did not make it maybe you didn't directly interact with them but you were among people that didn't make it so to have that point of view of based on me being inside the situation i would want the families of those people to know like how hard the um rescue team was trying their best and it wasn't like a you know i want them to know that you know they're they were trying to keep us calm and they were doing their best and like you said dealing with a lot of that guilt of why me but there's also people that don't have any connection to 9 11 at all but they just learned about it in school like your daughters yeah and so how based on how that changed how you approach life what would you want other people to know about the lessons that you've learned from that experience that you they don't teach you in school yeah is really just to find happiness in the life of um to never take a day for granted um to never leave the house angry um to always say you love before they leave the house um because you just don't know you don't know it life is just so short and um that also was a reason why i just i put twin towers like that's how i felt um and i thought why not actually give this trip this tribute to this man that really uh saved my life and now i have this you know so um it was like having my towers back um and i never took a date for granted that i worked there i loved it um so i would definite the message that i would just send is to just hold your loved ones really tight um is to always you know take try to be happy each day and life is hard and life is hard now i mean it's hard with the quarantine it's hard with what we're going through um we've been you know but i actually saw this um another tick tock and i can't remember this gentleman's name but i did like it and i thought it was such a good message and he he came out dancing and his message was you know you've survived 100 of your worst days and that's so true it's so true and it's one of those things where you just push ahead you know like you try to they're always going to be obstacles they're always going to be hurdles but um you are you you really just you you really just got you realized this is a very short life and the best thing to do is just be happy and um you know try try and um you just love and just each other because this is this can be taken away so quickly um and so i think that that's really the message is that we're all very strong we have all survived our worst days um but whether we believe it or not we have to give ourselves more credit than what we we give ourselves um because we're capable of it and uh you know it was a time um that was a time when we were really unified and there was a uh what somebody on twitter commented that on that post like look at how unified we were at that time and can we get back to that time that it was like that and you know everybody we all had our our views there were obviously conservatives they're all liberals um they were you know but everyone felt like we were together as a nation at that time um and yes of course there was there was a lot of um anti um islam feelings um at that time uh but we had a president that that was against that and and vocalized that um and so you know obviously i'm not gonna get political but it was just that that that time period where it just felt more unified than than how we are now um and i think that getting back to that um that love um and as cheesy as that sounds like i think that that's the best way we're all gonna be able to to get through this um and just to be kind i think that that's really the message is really to be kind to one another because you never know i mean it's just all of them this is this um that day is just a reminder of how short our lives are and how good we just need to be to each other um because it's short well thank you so much and i think coming from somebody who as i've learned about that situation i've put an image in my own head of what if i was there like wonder what that would have been like i can only imagine like what it was like for people that were actually there and so i know that it's something that's really difficult to talk about no matter how much time passes it's still a difficult thing to talk about so i really appreciate you taking the time to share that with me and i think everybody will learn a lot from it good good yeah and i'd love to see is this a project you're doing for this is just going to go on my youtube channel for my realism yeah that's so great i'm i'm really happy to help out and if you have any follow-up questions um you know i'm here thank you so so much yeah absolutely and best of luck to you you too all right thank you for your family well through all these times so thank you thank you i appreciate it yeah all right take care take care nice nice meeting you

Channel: Rad_Reporting

Views: 338,473

Rating: 4.9143677 out of 5

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Id: Ku5i07g9KAM

Length: 39min 1sec (2341 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 28 2020