On 9/11, an email from a survivor

One of our listeners sent us the following email. He survived 9/11, but almost didn't. It haunts him to this day. With his permission, here is his email and his gripping story.

I post this every year in the hopes that 9/11 is never forgotten. If you wish to use any of this, please do so.

I worked on the 25th floor of the south tower. It still haunts me. Life has never been the same as it changed perspective as well as employment. I could never work in NY again and have issues with limited travel to it. In addition, I am suffering from Multiple Myeloma (blood and bone cancer) from whatever we breathed in on that day.

My memories of 9/11 are as follows:

I remember the day was absolutely magnificent!. I left on the 7:04 out of Hamilton that morning. Got off in Newark and rushed onto the PATH train which takes you under the trade center. I arrived at 8:30 and began the long trudging up the stairs, escalators and elevators. I got to my cubicle, put down my briefcase and immediately went to the kitchen area to wash my hands (because of the filthy PATH train, the railings on the escalators, etc., I needed to de-germ myself!!). We had the entire 25th and 26th floors. As I went back to my cubicle, I saw 3 of my co-workers by the window, looking out toward the east (the side facing NJ). I asked what was up? They didn’t know except it looked like it was snowing!...I looked down and saw on top of the Marriott, 2 large chunks of metal, about the size of 2 large desks. They were burning! I couldn’t figure out what it was at the moment. (realized later on that it was either part of the 1st plane or part of the north tower). Then, a young gentleman who was a temp. employee for us, came by quickly and merely said “evacuate”!!! (He was facing the first tower and saw the fire and flames, but didn’t say anything to us.) He proceded to go into every cubicle, every bathroom, etc. on the 2 floors before he left. He actually saved everyone’s life in our company!)

We thought it was a the monthly fire drill but the alarms weren’t working….Normally during the fire drill, we would stay 5-10 minutes because it took so long to walk down the stairs so we would wait til most of the crowds were down already.

Well, this time, I thought that it was real because I saw that metal afire on top of the Marriott. I thought it might have been something like air conditioning units that blew out, and since the fire dept. was so good in the building that it was nothing to worry about.

Instead of waiting the normal 5 minutes, I decided to leave for a couple of reasons…I was only there a few minutes and was already having one of those days where I was already angry and my boss, the company, etc. and basically thought “the heck with this place, I’m leaving to get a decent cup of coffee across the street (We had horrible coffee in the office!) As I grabbed my briefcase (don’t know why I did that!) I went to the stairways and remarked to someone “I smell gas”. Logically, I thought that it was the copy machine where the toner spilled or something like that, not realizing it was the first tower being hit and that was jet fuel I smelled.

I entered the stairway and started the long trek downstairs. I remember seeing the sign for the 24th floor, thinking that this is taking an exceptionally long time today. It seemed like instantaneously, I was on the first floor, the door opened and everyone kept moving. Most people went toward Trinity Street (east). I went toward Liberty street. Why? I don’t know.

As I got out to the street, I stood in front of one of those concrete barriers with the hot dog wagon behind me, a gentleman next to me and a cop and another person next to him. I said to the guy next to me, “what do you think is going on?” He said to me that they think a small plane or copter hit the transmitting tower on the first tower. We kinda shrugged our shoulders as if to say, “oh, ok…everyone has expected that for years”.

At that point, I looked up and saw lots of smoke around the 70-80th floors. (You have to understand that the buildings are so huge that you couldn’t see any part of the first tower where the 1st plane hit). Seeing smoke, I thought about what we were taught in 1st grade….see smoke, cover your face and run!....well, 1st grade lessons finally kicked in!! I looked in front of me and there were 30-40 people standing next to the building, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee as if it was the typical fire drill. I proceded with the gentleman next to me to yell at these people to get moving and get away from the building. (It ended up in a counseling session that we probably saved these peoples lives!)

I walked quickly eastward toward a deli at that point because I need a pay phone to call home since I couldn’t get through on the cel phone. As I walked into the deli, the 2nd plane hit (I didn’t know that because I had already gotten into the deli.) I was told later on that the cop, hot dog wagon and other man where I was just standing, were killed immediately from all the debris falling on top of them. If I didn’t look for a phone and chase those people away from the building, I would be gone now, too.

I went to the back of the deli and saw debris all over the sky and ally way falling everywhere. I told the guy next to me to hold the door closed and don’t let anyone out til the debris clears. (At this point, I was proud of myself because I thought that I was right!...The a/c units blew out and this is just debris from that…..mind you, none of us knew what was going on…everyone in the world saw it on the news but we knew nothing…we were all just moving to get somewhere).

Just at that moment, a woman was running down the alley. I told the guy next to me to let her in quickly. I grabbed her across the shoulder to bring her into the deli. The next thing I saw was blood all over my hand….she was hit with glass and debris all across her shoulder. I told the kitchen staff to get towels on her. In a few minutes, debris cleared a little and we all ran out the back door of the deli.

I don’t know why or how I went the way I did. I went east toward Trinity place, then south. I went into a building which was a school. Some woman was saying to come in as they have an auditorium for people. I went in, then thought why would I want to be in a building when there is a major fire in the city?! Mind you, I still don’t know what happened. I came back across west toward west street.

As I worked my way toward the world financial center to get to the ferrys, I came back in front of my tower, only less than 2 blocks from tower 2, and saw the outline of the plane. This was at 9:30, the first I realized something happened. A construction worker told me that a jetliner just went over his head into the tower. I pointed to him where I was….he expressed how lucky I was! At that point, someone said to me “there goes another one”. I turned, looked and realized what he meant….I saw a body falling! I really questioned for a moment, what would I have done? I thought I would have probably broken through a window and tried to climb (shimmy) down the steel channels of the building….found out later that people that tried actually were having their hands burn off their bodies due to the intense fire and heat! You become frozen because you can’t believe what you were witnessing…people jumping to their deaths!!!

I tried to retrace my steps a couple of years ago, but there is a part of my memory that is missing….can’t figure it out as to what way I went, but I got over to the docks by the world financial center to get to the ferry. People were standing there just staring. I couldn’t believe that because we were only a few hundred feet from the towers. All I thought was that glass could blow out this far away and people could get hurt. (not thinking that the towers could fall over toward the river where we now were.

I started yelling and screaming at people to get moving and get onto the ferries or get behind a building or inside one. They started to move quicker and get in line for the ferries. A woman came up to me, put her arm in my arm and said “you know what you are doing! I’m going with you!” She was with me into Jersey City. (We only saw each other for 1 hour but talk every 9/11 and have been friends since!)

As We got onto the ferry, it pulled away from the dock and went as fast as possible to NJ. Just as we got away from the dock, there was a sound I will never forget. A thunder, a crushing sound, and an unexplainable hollow sucking sound. All of a sudden, my building is falling!!....I turned my head and never looked back. I was hit with a limited amount of debris and dust, but didn’t realize that until I eventually arrived home.

We still didn’t know what was going on because we had no communications. Just as we got off the ferry and onto the dock, 2 F16’s went by us along the Hudson river. That’s when you realized something terrible was going on.

I got onto PATH train to get to Newark and then to NJ Transit. I went 2 stops on the PATH and the train was stopped. Doors opened up and FBI and ATF agents were there, yelling at everyone to get out and out of this building because they thought that this train station was going to be blown up too! (I was in panic….just survived NY and now this building is going to go…was never so scared in my life!)

I got out, walked a few blocks with 3 other people, someone in a car asked us if we needed a ride to Newark. We all got in and that’s when we found out about all of the attacks…that was at 11AM. How I survived that day still haunts me! I can’t go back to ground zero…went there once and totally lost it!

Best To you all and keep up the GREAT work!
Nicholas L. Lazar