story1560.xml

story1560.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-08-30

I am a dental hygienist, and I was in the middle of my first appointment of the day. Debbie, our assistant entered my operatory and told us that the first Twin Tower had been
hit by an airplane. I remember that she asked us : ?Do you think it?s an accident?? I felt with a horrible certainty that it hadn?t been an accident, and told her so. Deb made two more trips into my room, each one with a new tale of a plane crash. The two towers and the Pentagon had been hit. A plane was missing. No one knew where the President was.
The staff and patients all crowded into our conference room to watch our tiny TV. The reception was bad, and it seemed to add to the unreality of the images that were being
televised. I wanted to cry, and couldn?t. I knew I should be frightened, horrified and grief-stricken, but I couldn?t feel a thing, just a numbness. All I wanted was answers, and of course at that time there weren?t any. There was just image after image of death and horror. No one cried; no one spoke. I think we all were realizing that our world had suddenly changed, and that nothing would ever be the same again.