How I Ended Up On America's Most Wanted

I used to work at the World Trade Center, North Tower on the 77th floor. I was at work a few hours already on September 11th, and was flipping through the paper, as I relaxed for a few minutes, between tasks. As I read the comics, I noticed the two comics pages in the paper were inverted. “All is not right in the world,” I mused to myself. There was a very loud noise at that point and you could feel the building shake. I ran to the main office where my co-workers were. The wall into the elevator shaft had caved in and there was small fires inside. I figured there was an explosion in the elevators. There was debris and broken glass everywhere. I found my father and my other co-workers and we all stayed together. We tried to figure out how to get down. Two of our exits were blocked and no one knew what to do. Luckily, there was a Port Authority office on our floor and everyone gathered there. They were in contact with the ground and we waited for instructions. There were phones we could use and I went to find one. People were watching our building on TV. There was a huge hole and lots of fire. We heard it was a plane crash but figured that some idiot in a Cesna lost control and hit the building. I called Jenna, my wife, and tried not to act scared. I told her I was OK, but that I might be trapped. I told here that I loved her and had to go, as debris was hitting the window. At this point, my father had disappeared. I panicked and looked for him, but he was gone. We started the long trek down the stairs, not really knowing what was going on. People were a little scared, as we were in a burning building and it was taking a lot of time to get outside. It was pretty crowded, so it took a long time. I sang and cracked jokes as we went down, to keep from going out of my head. People really weren’t amused, but I didn’t care. I was pretty aware that I had lost my father in the confusion. Someone mentioned that he was ahead of us, but I didn’t know for sure. There was smoke and darkness and a lot of scared people. But no was panicked and no one pushed and screamed. Those people really came together on that long march down, helping others who couldn’t make it. As we got near the bottom, firemen and police streamed up, to help people and to try and to control the blaze. They looked so tired, climbing all of those stairs with all of that heavy equipment. I patted them on the back and did little “Hooray Firemen” cheers. When we got to the 6th floor, there was another loud noise and more shaking. This was the South Tower coming down. At this point we knew another plane had hit the South Tower and that it was probably terrorists. Everyone screamed and ran. I joked to myself that it would stink to survive all of this and walk down all those stairs, just to die at the bottom. We walked to the bottom and when I exited I was amazed at all of the papers. There was metal and dust, but I was just so surprised at all the papers. I made a conscious effort not to look for bodies and I didn’t see any. There was so much going on I didn’t notice that the South Tower wasn’t there. I just ran down the street and kept going. I ran in front of as many news crews as I could, hoping someone would see me and let Jenna know I was OK. I did a news interview, trying to get the word out that I was OK, but not wanting to let the world know that I lost my father. It was the news reported who told me that the South Tower was gone. About 10 minutes after I exited my building, it too collapsed. I watched it go down, just standing there, not knowing what to do. Jenna also watched the building go down, not knowing I was safe. But someone saw my interview and got word to her. She knew I was safe. I got through to home and they had seen it too. They were heartened, knowing that if I got out, my father had time to get out too. He did get out and was safe. He was swept up in the initial rush down the stairs. I wandered around for a while longer, dazed and in shock. I eventually got a train home. Later that night, I waited in Overlook hospital, trying to get checked out. I watched the news footage over and over again, seeing that plane hitting that building over and over again. I never did see that footage of myself on the TV, although it later showed up on America’s Most Wanted. That’s a place I never wanted to end up.