story8399.xml

story8399.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-10-08

That morning I woke up and it was like any normal day. I remember thinking what a lovely day. Walking through the lobby of the 1 WTC, I remember leaving my i.d. card home that day and had to get a visitor's pass from the front desk. I arrived at work approximately 8:15 a.m. and sat at my desk and started talking to one of my colleagues. All of a sudden we hear this incredible thunderous sound. And then the windows begin to cave in. My first thought was to run and we preceeded to run to the receptionist area which looked like a hurricane hit it. We preceeded dowm the stairs but unfortunately when we got down a couple of flights of stairs the door wasn't opened (there was no knob or anyway to get in our out). We decided to go up instead of down. We must have been on the 83rd or 84th floor, when we were at a company and we were instructed to go in the conference room and that every thing was under control. While watching people call their loved ones (never thinking I really needed to do that since we didn't know what happened), all of a sudden the windows started to crash in and at that point, I sprained my ankle trying to get out of that conference. Now, we're preceeding down the stairs and I remember someone saying they heard that a helipcopter hit the building. My first thought was it couldn't be a helicopter because it wouldn't done that much damage to the windows. So we preceeded down the stairs and they're was smoke billowing in the stairwell and we couldn't breathe. I remember a woman having a bottle of water and sharing the bottle of water with myself and other people in the stairwell. One of the things that sticks out in my mind, I saw several firefighters going up the stairs and sitting on the floors I guess waiting to go up. We finally made it to the lobby and it was pretty weird because the lobby was normally very busy especially in the early morning. Once we were in the lobby, we were instructed that we could not go out through the street level - we would have to go out through the train stations. At this point, I never once asked what was wrong but I had a horrible feeling inside and knew something was terribly wrong because I kept hearing these strange crashing sounds (I realize know that it was bodies falling out the window). Once we got to the mall which is/was located right below the buildings, I noticed that it must've been evacuated because it was completely empty. All of a sudden, we hear what sounded like a hurricane or tornado coming towards us and we hear someone say run. We start to run but the sound kept coming closer and closer. I could feel myself being hurled around like a doll and when I awoke (not sure if I passed out) it was pitch dark (could not see in front of us). I was so frightened, it was such terror. One thing that frightened me more is that I was 6 months pregnant and thought my baby and I are going to die right in this place. Everyone is screaming and I remember begging god for my life. All of a sudden this voice comes from nowhere saying "shut the f up" we've got to get out of here so someone starts to hold on to my arm (he notices I'm pregnant), and we walk very carefully because I could feel stuff under my feet. Luckily, we see a flicker of light, which happened to be a opening. I'm not sure exactly how I got out because I've kind of blocked it out of my mind but I remember coming out of the building on the side of the church and news cameras were glaring in my face. Get to Chase Manhattan bank to call my sister to let her know I'm ok...she's frantic (never once telling me what she watched on tv). She says I'll meet you at Pace University, I said ok. Walking down the street in a daze, I arrive at a Starbucks that's right down the street from J&R Musicworld to wipe my face because I could barely see because of the debris all over me. I start to walk toward Pace University to meet my sister. Now people are screaming and running and sayiing the building's falling. I run as fast as I can but because of my sprained ankle, I just keep falling and thought "oh my god", I'm definitely going to die. What seems like an eternity the sound and debris stops. I walking near City Hall and at EMT comes up to me and says "Miss you have to come with me", I ask her what happened and she tells me terrorist blew up the WTC and the Pentagon. I'm hysterical. I guess I finally realized what had happened. I'm taken to the hospital and the next day, I lost my baby. It's taken me up until now to ever post my story because I've been in a state of shock for over a year and am know trying to come to terms with what happened - how my life changed in a split second. My family and I have always been very close but because my mom and my sister watched what happened on television and they assumed I was dead, it's made us appreciate life so much more.