Surviving 9/11: Where We Stand

(reflective music) Every day is kind of different.

I don't think a day goes by in my life where I don't remember 9/11.

I find that the need to educate and promote awareness of 9/11 increases, with every month and year that goes by.

2,749 people died on September 11th.

At the very least, every one of them was someone's son or daughter, but they were probably also somebody's husband, or wife, or cousin, or brother, or sister.

And it just wasn't the people that were killed that day.

It was the people who had to get out of those buildings.

The people that went in to help and are now sick.

(ominous music) 9/11 started like any other work day in September.

I remember coming into work that day and I just looked at the sky.

It was so beautiful.

I remember my dad wasn't supposed to work that day.

He worked on the 92nd floor, worked for Car Futures.

I worked for the May Davis Group and we were on the 87th floor of the North Tower.

I was in my office on the 82nd floor of the South Tower.

I was at my desk in my office at Three World Financial Center across the street from One World Trade.

Sat at my desk, was checking my emails, getting ready to start working, and then 08:46 is when the first plane hit six floors above us.

(plane droning) Holy, s***.

Oh, ***.

(explosion blasting) I was actually sitting at my desk when Flight 11 struck the North Tower.

And I heard a very loud sound followed by the building shaking.

When the first plane hit at 8: 46 I heard it and I felt it, but I didn't know what it was.

I got on the subway and we were stopped at Chamber Street and the conductor said that there was a incident at the World Trade Center.

I got out at Rector Street and I noticed everybody was looking up and there was black and gray smoke billowing in the wind, very high up in the air.

I saw numerous people in front of a TV watching the TV and I said, "What is all this commotion?"

I couldn't comprehend what I was looking at, at first, 'cause I never saw anything like this.

A fire, a building that size, I didn't know what to make of it.

They announced on the radio that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.

As I drove home, I heard the fire department issue a total recall, which is not something they'd ever done before.

Every cop that was available was ordered to go down to the World Trade Center.

I had this inkling that I was going into something that I never imagined that I would ever as a cop.

We stayed in the office for a while, till the smoke got too heavy and we decided, you know, it's time to go.

We made a human chain.

14 of us tried to go out the back.

We couldn't, 'cause the floor collapsed so we couldn't get to the door.

Front door was jammed and it was knocked off the hinges so you couldn't open it.

So, then we made our way to the last exit.

Fortunately, that was it, we were able to get out.

Once I got to the lobby, there was every type of emergency worker, smashed marble and glass, chaos, people bleeding.

And we were advised to go out the door, cover our heads and not look up.

Someone got in my face and yelled, "Run!

", and I just took off.

I remember going to school, normal school day.

Just started first grade really.

And then all of a sudden pretty early in the morning, I remember everybody just saying like, "Okay, like everybody we're going home."

When I got home, my whole family was over.

I just ended up going to my bedroom and just hearing crying and screaming.

Something all of a sudden very loud and screechy started to vibrate the scaffolding and imagine the worst piercing noise you've ever heard.

I see another plane coming heading for the World Trade Center and we heard the big pow.

And that's when Flight 175 struck from the south side.

It struck my office.

(sirens wailing) My desk was practically at the epicenter of where it struck.

Had I been there, I would've been killed instantly.

The van that I was in shook and all we heard was silence on the radio.

It was a very eerie feeling.

I knew I had to go get my dad.

He lived four blocks away.

Got into my father's building, got up to his apartment and he's sitting there on his bed white as a ghost.

And I'm like, "Are you okay?"

And he just couldn't function.

He just said, "The plane just flew over my building."

The instruction of don't look up was constantly repeated.

And I guess human nature, you do the opposite, and I did look up.

And I will never get those visions out of my head.

I first saw giant panes of glass coming towards me, paper, debris.

But what I will never forget is the sound and sight of people jumping from the tower.

I saw what looked like a knapsack coming out of the sky.

And as I stepped back, what appeared to be a knapsack was a person.

It was in fact it was a construction worker, and just a few feet in front of me, he hit the ground.

My father and I made it out.

We're walking by the Hudson River, the throngs of people are looking at the towers.

I turned to look at what they're looking at, 'cause this great shriek and gasp went up and there were people falling out of the building, and they're on fire.

I remember seeing people on the left of me and on the right of me, approximately every three minutes that they were falling to their death.

It was a memory that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

And I never forgot this one individual.

He was on the corner of the building and I remember seeing his tie flapping in the wind, and he was getting there.

He was actually moving down.

I'm like, I think this guy might may make it.

And then all of a sudden at that point he stopped for some unknown reason.

And I said, "Why is he stopping?"

And all of a sudden with that, I remember seeing him as that building started to collapse, he just faded right into the building.

(ominous music) At that moment, I didn't know what to do.

I felt helpless.

I took a dive.

I wound up landing.

The debris just kept coming down and landing on top of us.

We had heard members calling for help on the radio and we had started going down West Street trying to locate them.

While we were on West Street, the North Tower collapsed.

And I was blown down the street by the concussion of the blast and trapped under an ambulance where I was found approximately two hours later.

I used to show people where I was found and they would say, "That's impossible."

I'm like, "Yeah, it was 75 feet from the front of the building."

It just, you know, the truck that I was knocked under saved my life.

I looked at the city.

It was an image that I cannot describe.

Everything I knew was gone.

A few hours went by and I'm like looking for my mom, but she's outside crying.

And I'm like, "Oh, when's dad getting home?"

He wasn't supposed like he, you know, they're crying, they don't know.

I had tried calling the firehouse around seven o'clock and I got the answering machine and I just left a message, "Please have Bruce Van Hine call his wife."

And then a couple minutes later I called back again and said, "Actually, please have anybody call Bruce van Hine's wife."

And I didn't put my pajamas on, 'cause I just had a feeling somebody was coming.

And that's when Charlie, who was Bruce's lieutenant and a friend, you know, came to tell me they were unaccounted for.

The day after 9/11 on the 12th when I woke up when the world was changed, I was horrified.

My father called me and he asked me, "Are you okay?"

And I said, "Dad, physically, yes, I'm okay.

Psychologically, no, I'm not."

He called me a few days later and he said, "So, are you better now?"

I said, "Dad, call me in a month or maybe a year."

That amount of pain can't be described even when you don't know the people.

You know, there was a collective mourning and loss.

I walked up Greenwich Street and I remember thinking, "What's gonna happen now?"

"Like, where are all the people that were here?"

It was a waiting game.

When is he either gonna walk in the door or when am I gonna know that he's gone?

I distinctly remember my grandma just kind of like, saying it multiple times to us, "Listen, like Mommy's gonna need help.

Like your dad's not gonna be able to come home.

" I think, the first shock was realizing how many friends I'd lost, not really knowing what to do.

My emotions were a mix of anger, obviously grief, sadness, and guilt.

So, we had 14 employees up there.

13 of us got out, so we lost one.

Harry Ramos from New Jersey was our head trader.

We were going down the stairwell.

There was a heavyset gentleman just sitting there.

We all walked by him, said, "Do you need help?"

"No, I'm just gonna stay here."

So, Harry stayed with him.

They made their way down.

From what we were told, they got down to about the 30th floor and that's where they, when the building collapsed, they were still in the thirties.

One of my coworkers called me and said, "Hey, I heard there's a handful of people that are not accounted for."

And my whole body just stopped.

And I said, "I have to go now."

And I put the phone down and I just wept.

My very close friend, Abraham Zelmanowitz was very close to a gentleman by the name of Ed Beyea and Ed and Abe worked together at Empire.

And Ed was a programmer, but he was also a quadriplegic.

You had tremendous survivor guilt, because you know, why them and not you?

In the very early stages, my survivor's guilt was very personalized.

Abe is a wonderful person, a religious person, you know, he did the ultimate sacrifice.

Like, well, what am I?

You know, like, why am I here?

The Harry piece still bothers me, because why did he stay?

He had a family, two young kids, even an infant at home, and he stayed behind.

And my, you know, I'm a 27-year-old kid, I just kept going, "Oh you okay, okay great."

And I just kept going, but Harry stayed.

The opportunity came in probably mid-October when I was able to go back to work and said, "Listen, every day that I'm not working, I want to be assigned to the Trade Center for rescue and recovery."

And I spent 480 hours down there looking, just finding anything.

I mean, a piece of clothing that would just, maybe that would bring closure to somebody.

You went to so many funerals, you lost track.

So, those were some of the toughest things.

And just to try and find normalcy and to try and go back into doing things that you love to do and would kind of take your mind off of, you know, what went on.

One of the biggest issues was, what do you do now?

Because everything you did, whether it be personal, work related, it just seemed so insignificant.

I was physically in shock for about five weeks.

The pain, the sadness, those feelings lasted for a very long time.

And I experienced PTSD.

I know I wasn't going to work, because I was so shattered with PTSD, and if a truck backfired or a plane flew overhead and we were dining outside, I was under the table.

I found myself getting off the subway and the bus a lot just 'cause I was afraid that the thing would blow up.

What I found helpful was having a few adult beverages.

In hindsight, I really used alcohol as a crutch, just to get by.

Some of the PTSD and the depression probably came on in the first few months.

When you had some spare time, you would just cry, because it was just overwhelming.

They had collapsed survivor groups and groups, and for a while they helped and then they started to kind of peter off.

It was very difficult once these groups started to kind of fall by the wayside to find a therapist that was able to handle what you were going through.

So, you would kind of bounce back and forth.

There was never any, you know, continuous therapy or there was no continuity to what we were doing.

It kind of was all sporadic, and you bottle that up.

And as I know now, I bottled it up for a very long time.

My company mandated that we have some counseling, and we went to different counselors and I stopped very abruptly, because when I would tell my story, the counselors would weep and then I would feel guilty, because I made the counselors cry.

So I stopped going.

I think, that was one of the problems that causes a lasting effect, because even people who followed through with therapy, there was no precedent.

So, you would go to a trauma counselor whose training was, what do you do, if somebody lost someone in a car crash?

Not, what do you do when you watch people die in your office?

(ominous music) Right after 9/11, I remember seeing footage of US embassies all around the world and how the people of whatever country that embassy was in were placing flowers and candles and having vigils for us.

It restored my faith in humanity that was a little bit shattered on that morning.

It was amazing after 9/11, how New Yorkers, people all over this country, as well as internationally, came to help.

There were hundreds of people at the entrance to Ground Zero.

They would be sitting on the grass, and every time they'd see a rescue vehicle start to leave, they'd get up, they'd start cheering us.

That was extraordinarily emotional.

I mean, even on that day, just strangers helping strangers.

People covered in dust and a Black woman helping a white guy, Chinese guy helping a Spanish guy, pouring water on their face, giving him water, carrying and helping 'em over to the triage or just everybody helping each other.

It didn't matter.

It wasn't white, Black, brown.

It was Americans were, this is what we do.

The feeling, for the first time since 9/11, came into me that there is beauty and that there is love.

Hope crept back in.

You know, we were a tight family after that.

The whole country kind of was a tight family, you know.

We craved human connection on every level, at every moment, because we didn't wanna feel like we were alone.

And we were not.

We were pulled together, because of 9/11.

It didn't matter who you were, everybody stuck together and were there for one another.

We acted like a real society.

In the first couple years, everybody was sick and we didn't really want to tell how sick we were, 'cause we knew that we might lose our jobs and you know, I wasn't going to work unable to perform my job, but I was going to work not feeling that great.

I had what I had thought was a cold.

And the director of the emergency room saw me and he said, "Let me see your fingers."

So, I looked at my fingertips and pressed down on my nail and he said, "You're blue around your lips."

He took me into the emergency room right away.

And the pulmonologist said to me, "This is all related to 9/11."

"This is all related to the dust that you were breathing, the heavy metals, everything else, it's all related to 9/11."

After September 11th, I was diagnosed with sinusitis, asthma, gastric reflux, PTSD, reactive airway disease.

And subsequently, had lesions in my kidney my spleen, in my left ear.

And some autoimmune stuff that developed later on.

Over the years, I have developed GERDs and according to the victim's compensation fund, that's the number one side effect.

I have an autoimmune disease called sarcoidosis, which was diagnosed post 9/11.

It's something that can cause fatigue, it can cause heart issues, lung issues, swollen lymph nodes, a plethora of things.

When I found out about it originally, the lymph nodes were so swollen that they thought it was cancer.

So, my doctor laughed at the time and he said, "I've never seen someone so happy to have an autoimmune disease."

And I said, "Well, you told me it was either that or cancer.

So I felt like I hit the lottery when it wasn't cancer."

There were all these air testers everywhere downtown, in my building, in my apartment building, in the subway, on the street.

You'd see these little things that looked like Star Wars droids that were just testing the air.

On the news, "No, it's fine.

The air's safe, it's fine."

And we know now that many people have passed away and suffered from this.

And I hope that we're okay, but you just don't know.

People that were there for an hour have died of cancer.

I spent 500 hours down there, including being in both collapses, and you know, I'm doing pretty okay.

My father passed away in 2015 due to pulmonary fibrosis, which was a 9/11 related disease.

Up until 9/11, I never went to a doctor.

I was healthy as could be.

Now, I'm going to more doctors than I know what to do with.

I've got doctor's appointments at least on a monthly basis.

I'm going at least once a month.

Sometimes I'm going two or three times a month to the different specialists.

You just see all these folks around you.

I mean, I get phone calls every week somebody has cancer.

I never thought that at 52 I was gonna retire from a job that was my life that I loved.

I think the hardest thing about PTSD is acknowledging that you were affected by something.

For like a couple years after things happened, I was always in class and being like, "What if like my dad hit his head and he forgot who he is, but he's somewhere and like he's gonna get his memory back soon and just come home."

But especially, at six years old, it was just you didn't really like understand death.

But when it was explained to you so many times that your dad's not coming home, it's just not something that a 6-year-old should have to deal with.

It's not something that thousands of kids should have had to deal with.

(ominous music) We kind of all lost our innocence that day.

One of the things that I did to help me like I'm doing now, talking about it, comparing nightmares, realizing that, you know, I'm not crazy.

Other people are feeling the same thing.

I do struggle with talking about it at times.

I still think about it and I get the flashbacks, but the support is there, 9/11 commission, the physical peer groups, other members, other first responders that were there.

So, I know that it's a continuing process.

Talking about 9/11 was the most therapeutic thing I think.

And even now speaking about my own experience when I'm asked is something that helps me.

I'm continuing to heal, and I think, the healing will continue for the rest of my life.

What really helped me was being open to wanting to be helped, of seeking out the help.

I found for myself I was the only one who's gonna pick up the pieces and put myself back together, 'cause no one's gonna do it for you.

My mom has made friends who have lost their significant others, their kids.

It brought a lot of people together that we otherwise would've never known in our lives.

I am an extremely happy and better person, because of 9/11, not because of the day, but because of the things that have happened to me and the things that I have experienced directly, because of 9/11.

Like I would never have gone to Japan, if I wasn't a survivor.

I would've never gone to Newfoundland to Gander to say thank you to the people of that tiny little town for doing what they did on 9/11.

Which means I would've never met one of my dearest friends, Kim, or my dearest friends, Kelly.

I've been to Gander more than once now.

I've been to visit them, just them, not 9/11 related at all.

And I've been there on 9/11, twice.

Even today, I cannot accept what happened as anything that made sense.

I don't think I've fully made peace, 'cause the guilt is still there.

You know, like I said, I've moved on.

I haven't forgotten.

But to fully make peace, that's still a work in progress for me.

I resented 9/11 for many, many years.

I still do resent 9/11.

However, at some point in my life I transitioned to accepting.

And I think, for us to start to heal, we have to accept the fact there were horrible things that happened on 9/11, but there were also a lot of good things that happened as a result of 9/11.

The American people joining forces, the international community coming to help us.

I'm actually, thankful that I'm alive and I'm actually, being able to be here and tell a story.

Reconciliation is making peace with it enough where you can continue your life.

And I feel that most of the time I can do that.

I don't think I can ever fully do it, because it's an unnatural event.

And I don't think humans are meant to process terrorism.

It just wasn't fair.

Like, why did these 3,000 people have to lose their lives, like for no reason, for no reason.

I don't want an answer on why.

I just wish we can go back in time and tell all those people just don't go to work that day.

September 11th is a 365-day event for those that were there, those that were sick from being there, those that have died from being there, their families, and those that have lost loved ones on that day.

You know, we've lost over 2,000 first responders post-9/11.

There is well over 95,000 people registered in the World Trade Center Health Program.

And of that number, approximately 45 or 50,000 are actively sick.

So, it's not just one day, it's every day.

Losing my dad to his illness, it inspired me to live the way he would want me to live.

He would want me to be happy.

He would want me to enjoy life.

Just every now and then, I just like to remember that he is up there and I am gonna see him again.

He was here, he's not here, but he's never gonna leave our hearts.

(reflective music) 9/11 ultimately, is about people, the innocent victims who were killed, the brave first responders and others who came and helped, and all of those who supported them and showed compassion.

These are the people that give me hope.

And there are enough of them in the world, I believe, to think that most people in this world are good people.

And that inspires me today.

And I think and hope that will continue.

Maybe we should look back to events like 9/11 and see how close we were.

And it didn't matter what religion you were, what color you were, we all were there for one another.

(reflective music)