Think about something you have achieved. What did you think about? Was it finishing a marathon, or confronting your fears? Well, one of my biggest achievements wasn’t any of those. It was just surviving.

 

My day started off as per normal. I woke up, got dressed and arrived at my office (84th floor on the 2 WTC or known as the south twin tower in New York city) at around 7:15 in the morning. It was a particularly nice day with blue skies and an unusually warm fall. I worked at Euro Brokers for over 29 years, starting as a broker trainee in 1973. For the past 14-15 years I’ve been in management. 

 

As I said, I got to my office, grabbed my morning coffee and then got on with my daily work. I don’t recall anything extraordinary happening, until 8:46am. I heard a big THUMP! Or a BANG! I didn’t feel any vibration, but there was a very loud noise. “The entire area outside my window was filled with flames.” I didn’t know what it was at the time, but it was the fuel from the first jet hitting the North Tower after it had gone right through the building. 

 

I realised that a plane had crashed into tower one. We could see the damage was only  in tower one, so we weren’t too worried about evacuating. People did run to the stairs though, but I wasn’t so scared. It wasn’t the tower I was in. I called my wife “You know, you won’t believe this but Tower One has been hit. We are fine where we are. Relax, turn on the TV, there is a developing story there, and find out what’s happening.” Then the speakers announced “Building Two is secure. There is no need to evacuate Building Two. If you are in the midst of evacuation, you may return to your office. Repeat, Building Two is secure….”  Then they just went through the whole story again. 

 

I went to the west side of my office near the windows talking to a friend. It was about 9:03am, then I heard another CRASH! But that time I felt the vibration. The second plane hit the levels below me.. What was strange was that our building fell apart, a complete deconstruction  but no explosion. “I just felt my heart, oh my gosh, we’re going over.” 

 

For 7-10 seconds I thought it was all over! We swayed to one side. Then swayed back, we were stable again. I looked my friend square in the eye. I knew I was in a difficult situation, fortunately I had a torch with me. I switched it on, it wasn’t dark, it was sort of white from the dust or chalk from the debris from the ceiling. We didn’t know what happened, we didn’t even know it was a plane. 

 

I went down a pair of stairs with a group of people, about seven of us. They were behind me because I had the torch. Then we met a lady from the 80th floor. She shouted to go up, because there were too many flames down the bottom and it was too smokey. We couldn’t go up or down, we were trapped. Everyone was arguing about where we should go, up or down.

 

I heard bang, bang, bang, thump, thump, thump, “Help! Help! I’m buried. I can’t breathe. Is anybody there? Can you help me?,” a strange voice coming from within the 81st floor. I grabbed my friend Ron and said “Come on, let’s go help.” 

 

I pulled the trapped man from this hole I couldn’t really see – I found out later his name was Stanely. He leaped up and I got a better grip on him. He later said that I pulled him up like superman. I didn’t feel like superman, I felt like scaredy man. It was an exciting moment, it really was. 

 

Ron was now gone. I didn’t know whether he went up or down. He later told me he went up to the 91st floor, where he laid on the floor for 10 minutes until he panicked. He told me, “I had to see my wife. I had to see my kids at all costs. I was gonna make it out.” And he went to the stairway and went all the way down, following me, I guess, down the stairway. 

Stanley and I decided to carry on downwards. The first five floors were difficult but sprinklers were now on and helping with the fire. We made it to  floor 44, where we saw this man with giant wounds in his head. His phones didn’t work so Stanley and I ran downstairs until we found a phone, dialled 9-1-1 and made sure he had medical attention coming for him. 

I didn’t know that the building was about to collapse, in fact I told Stanley not to rush so we didn’t break an ankle. We ran down stairs until we finally escaped. When we got out there were firemen and policemen outside. They recommended not to cross the street as they weren’t sure if the building was going to topple over. I asked Stanley if we should cross, and so we went for it. We checked one more time, then we ran for it. We crossed Liberty St . There was no one there, no traffic, there were some emergency vehicles but that was it. 

We ran across the street, then the fire hall which was on the corner then up one more block and caught our breath . I saw a deli, I asked for some water and he generously gave some to me. In fact so generous he gave me a whole breakfast platter. He didn’t think anyone was coming to pick it up. He was a nice guy at the time considering the conditions. 

I carried it to Trinity Church St, where we met some ministers. Then Stanley broke down and cried to the ministers “This man saved my life”.  I was full of emotion too. Well everyone in New York was, maybe even others that were concerned. I said, “You know, Stanley, you may think I saved your life but I think you saved my life, too. You got me out of that argument as to whether I should go up or down. I’m here and I’m fine, and it’s because of your voice in the darkness that I made it.” The ministers had a quick prayer before telling us that the church was open if we wanted to go there. 

We nodded and made our way to the church. We walked up the street and as we walked up we could see the buildings. Stanley said “You know, I think those buildings could go down.” I said, “There is no way. Those are steel structures. That’s furniture and paper and carpeting and draperies and things like that that are burning.” But I didn’t finish the sentence when Tower Two started to slide down.

We were probably out of the building for about 5 minutes when the tower had collapsed. Oh I had a horrible feeling, well the whole escape was horrible but thinking we actually had a chance then realising reality. I knew that the  top third or quarter of the tower definitely had no chance whatsoever. We stared, no one was really running for their lives then a great wave or tsunami of dust came over the church. Everybody finally started running for their lives in fear of the debri and dust. But I knew nothing solid was going to happen to me, as the building hadn’t toppled over yet. But I still didn’t want to breathe the polluted air. So I ran.

I ran into that lobby, where the air was fresh and clean. I stayed there for half an hour, then finally realising that I still had the fruit platter in my hands. I just threw it on some table. The debri and ash settled down, it was about a quarter of an inch thick. No cell phones of land lines were working, there was no way of communication. I realised that Stanley and I had parted ways in the crowd of people running. I was grateful and fortunate again to have his business card. 

I walked up along the side of the island, thinking how I would get home to New Jersey in this fog filled of  dust and debri. Then I heard “Last call for the New Jersey ferry.”  I jumped on that ferry, not getting charged. We sailed around the southern tip of Manhattan. It was then that others and I realised that both towers were completely down. 

As we got closer to the island, I saw that the towers were gone completely! I was in shock! Disbelief! Then we didn’t know about the hijacked planes, so I was trying to figure out what happened, questioning everything that had happened in the past day. We were completely in the dark, but we could look off to the Trade Centre on our right and see that the building I had worked at for almost 27 years had now been demolished. Gone. Finito! People couldn’t believe it.

We sailed in silence to the Harbourside in New Jersey City and got off the ferry. I ran to a ticket booth and asked that lady if I could go on the phone. I called my wife whom I hadn’t talked to in almost over, I couldn’t remember but it was certainly too long. I think it was around 11:15am and the tower toppled over at 10am so she would have been beside herself for the past hour and 15 minutes.  There were a lot of people home so I could hear cheers of relief in the background. 

They wanted to come and get me but the traffic would have been too busy so I walked a mile to the train station. I hopped on the train and waited because there was a five minute delay. When I got to my train station I got in my car and was on my way home. When I got home I honked awfully loud, then an even louder group of people stamped out to the lawn full of reunion and tears. For the next few days people wouldn’t stop ringing. It was friends from all over the world, media and widows. (Not at the time as their husbands were only missing then.) 

From my side it was a long, tiring, horrific day. Full of emotions on a rollercoaster. I lost lots of people that day. People I loved, talked with,worked with, and had memories with. My achievement was surviving the 9/11 attack. But along the way I made new friends; I saved a person; I was saved by a person; I had the most hectic day and finally, I ran down 84 floors of stairs  for the first time.  My name is Brian Clark, and that’s my story.