story295.xml

story295.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-03-21

I am the assistant manager of a home for mentally handicapped adults.They were all at work and I was in the residence with a fellow co-worker. We were watching Good Day NY when the first plane hit. My co- worker and I was in shock. We were wondering how such an "accident" could occur. Minutes later, we saw the second plane hit and we screamed.I remember the reporter on the news screaming also. This was not an instant replay. It was all live and there was such an overwhelming feeling of shock. At that point, we knew for a fact that this was not an accident. My co-worker had to go and pick up all the patients from work. He had a hard time and it took him forever because everything was shut down. I felt as if it was the end of the world.When I saw the buildings collapsing right before my eyes I immediately started crying. I had an overwhelming feeling of fear and sadness. When I heard of the other crashes, I felt so helpless.My sister called me crying because she was stuck in Manhattan and she was scared because she works a few stops away from the World Trade Center. It took her hours, but she finally made it home.I was glued to the T.V. all day even though I was at work. A few days later, my mother was hospitalized and she became very disoriented. There were times that she didn't even know who I was. She would call me by her sister's name(She's deceased).There were times when she would jump out of the bed and she would say that she has to help save the patients. By the way, she happens to work at that same hospital ( VA Hospital in Manhattan). After being analyzed by the psychiatrist, he said that she was experiencing some post traumatic grief from September 11th. She could not watch t.v. because everything on the t.v. had to do with 9/11. She was hospitalized for about two weeks. She regained herself and now it's as if the temporary disorientation never happened. When she was able to talk about it, she expressed how scared she was, especially since she works in a Federal Building in Manhattan. I guess we all felt that we didn't know where the terrorists were going to strike next. That's the scary part of it and we still don't know.