It was 8:05 central time on September 11, 2001, when I heard the first news bulletin. It stated simply that a small plane had hit one of the World Trade Center buildings. I had just gotten back into my minivan after retrieving my wife’s x-rays from underneath the bed in our bedroom (the hospital needed them for comparison purposes), and I was on my way back to Rush/Copley Medical Center in Aurora, IL. NPRs’ Morning Edition was on the radio as usual when the regular top of the hour news cast was interrupted for a special announcement in what was to become the single worse lose of life to terrorism in American history.
NPR correspondent Lynn Neary announced that there were unconfirmed reports a small twin-engine plane had hit the World Trade Center building in New York City, and that details would follow as they became available. Morning Edition resumed and I thought little of the incident surmising that it was just an accident and I all probability there was probable very little damage done. So I proceeded to the hospital, and twenty minutes later I was back in the hospital waiting room. Having handed over the x-rays to the nurse attending my wife, I was almost to the end of the latest edition of Automobile Magazine when another nurse rushed into the waiting room and announced that two planes had hit the World Trade Center building. I was sitting under the television—which was off—and she rushed over and snapped it one. I moved to where I could see the television better just as the first images of the burning towers hove into view as the television warmed up.
And there they were; the twin towers of the World Trade Center, billowing fire and think black smoke before my eyes. As I sat and watched the live scene unfold in front of me with detached fascination, the overwhelmingly female audience that shared the waiting room with me gasped in horror at the sight. Hands held over months in disbelief, a few began to cry, and still I was strangely unmoved. The images to me were surreal; it was though I was watching an action sequence in a Hollywood movie, rather then real life footage. And the feeling only grew stronger as CNN replayed to footage of the second tower being hit by a very large airliner passenger jet. This can’t be real my mind told me, this can’t be real, this can’t be real. That plane was huge it kept saying, how was that possible?
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