February - March 2002 Edition

Escape From The World Trade Center By Christopher F. Hardej I was sitting at my computer with my back to the window on the 82nd floor of Tower No. 1 at the World Trade Center Tuesday morning when I heard an air rush, a semi-long (2 second) “swooooosh.”  Then there was a thump that rocked the building forward which then sprang back.  Its impact was over relatively quickly and it did not seem as violent as some people reported being knocked out of their seats.  It took a second to register before I started my escape out of the building the morning of September 11th, 2001. I am a Senior Transportation Analyst with the New York State Department of Transportation.   I was in the office by my typical 7:30am start time.  My desk was by the windows on the north side of the building – the side of the impact.  I sat with my back to the windows as I do a large amount of computer work.  That particular morning, I was working the organization’s mail list in an Access format.  Therefore, I did not see the plane approaching, although one secretary reportedly saw the underside of the plane. After the impact, I got out of my seat and turned to look out the window, which did not shatter.  I recall thinking that this is something that one did not see everyday as it looked like a tickertape parade with large amounts of paper, metal fragments, and shards floating down.  I’m also a military person. Instinctively, I hit the deck behind the desk to protect myself from anything that might come through the window.  I then crawled to the middle of the office to get away from the window. One of my co-workers tripped over me and he said to head for the exit. The lights in the office were still on at this time.  I suspected the plane entered somewhere in the upper 80s, low 90s.  Being a flyer, I did not hear the engine noise.  I noticed that was a beautiful day for flying looking out the window before the accident, so I knew it wasn’t simply an accident. So we quickly walked through the aisle and amassed by the reception area just like in the fire drills that we had several times a year.  There was no panic, but everybody had a look of concern on their faces as we momentarily awaited instruction as in previous fire drills.  Even though our office was lit, the hallways were dark and filled with smoke.  Out of the darkness, I heard one of our employees by the stairwell yelling in a bellowing voice, “Come to my voice.”  He kept on yelling that.  That was what we needed to get us moving out of the office although we all knew where the stairs were.  When we got to his voice, we scurried down the stairs that were lit.  We did not run, but moved at a quick pace.  As we started down the stairs, I noticed that there were not many people in the stairway yet. It was relatively calm and easy getting down to about the mid-sixty something floor. Then due to all the people leaving the lower floors we came to a standstill.  Now we started to measure progress by one floor at a time, then a half of a floor.  I looked in the gap down the middle of the stairs and saw a sea full of people for as far as the eye could see. While waiting in the stairs, it was like take a number and wait your turn as there was nothing you could do.  There was no panic, but again everyone had that look of concern.  We let two hysterical people pass to get them out of the area.  All this time, there were some communications throughout the stairs from several Port Authority people with hand-held radios.  I remembered taking in everything skeptically as I suspected the rumor mill would be running rampant.  I would take care in prefacing my remarks with “I heard” or saying “supposedly”.  Even the White House reportedly was hit.  I figured that I would get the real story when I got home.  It was quite a while later, when we were in the sixties, that the other plane hit the other building.  I didn’t recall noticing it in the stairwell, nor hearing anything.  I thought it was a small business-type jet that hit the other building. While waiting in the stairs, there was a lot of small talk going on to pass the time.  Typically, “I was here in 1993 and here we go again.”  After a while, Snapples appeared as they were passed up the stairs for anyone to share or drink – something to momentarily ease you.  I realized that my white-collared shirt wasn’t doing anything on my back, so I took it off just in case I would need to cover my mouth and nose in a smoke-filled environment.  Before doing so, I took my Metrocard out of my shirt pocket and put it in my side pant’s pocket.  I thought that when I got down stairs, I would simply grab my card and get on the subway at the other end of the concourse and work on that Access file at home.  I told my boss my intention to do so in the stairwell.  We still had a grouping from our office together as we started as a group.  As we slowly made our way down to the 45th floor, a transfer point, a sky lobby, we were directed to another stairwell.  As there was a large crowd of people not moving into the stairwell, my boss turned backed to the original stairs and I followed.  That was where we separated from the others in my office.  It turned out that was a mistake as those who waited for that stairwell were well ahead of me and away from the building before the collapse.  Again, we scampered down several flights of stairs with false hope only to find the tail end of the mass gaggle in the lower forties.  The stairwell comfortably held two across.  After awhile, the injured started coming down and we would yell “injured” while moving to the right to make room.  One man was burnt from the waist up.  One woman was badly burnt walking under her own control, but like a mummy with her arms painfully straight out in front of her.  Seeing her unescorted, my boss escorted her down the stairs.  That was his ticket out.  I knew he did that out of concern for her as he is a genuinely helpful person.  I also saw the guy with the seeing-eye dog.  It made sense that he would be leading the dog down as he would probably tumble otherwise.  I thought that was a lot of stairs for a Labrador, as my previous dog was a Labrador prone to hip problems.  We made way for them as well. As we were going down past the upper thirties, we started seeing the first firemen making their way up.  By now, it had been around forty-five minutes.  With forty plus more flights to go, it seemed like a losing battle.  They looked like they were so out of shape, but understandably – they had walked more than thirty plus flights in full gear with a hose on their backs.  I was amazed to see the dedication of a team of two carrying a litter.  The one on the front looked like he was going to drop any second.  The trailer said, “Let me take the front.”  But he wouldn’t hear it saying, “I can do one more flight.”  I noticed that the firemen opened every fifth floor (35th, 30th, 25th…..) as a rest area to catch their breath.      I found out later that the plane was estimated to have entered in the 92nd floor.  One person on the 86th floor turned toward the window while getting up and saw the hijacker eye-to-eye.  I do not recall seeing many people behind me as I started down the stairs.  Although I did not see fire, there was fire on my 82nd floor.  I did not hear of anyone above the floors that got hit getting out.     All we knew at the time was that a plane hit the building and the building was built to withstand the impact as it did.  Therefore, there was still no need to panic throughout our trip down the stairs.  In the twenties, we were starting to move at a better pace.  I noticed a smashed Snapple machine passing one of the open floors and I felt a cool breeze as I surmised that someone busted some windows open.  When we finally got down to the 12th floor, things started to open up as there was no longer a backlog of people in front of us.  I also noticed, for the first time, that the floor was wet.  When we got to the lobby I stepped into an inch or two of water.  As I was coming down with two co-workers at this point, I stopped at the base of the stairs to wait for them.  After waiting about 30 seconds which seemed eternally long, I was beginning to think that I should go – but I waited and my co-worker appeared.  I asked him, “Where is Larisa?”  He said that she was right behind him.  She did not appear for another lengthy feeling delay of 15 seconds.  I saw the doors on the elevators twisted and mangled and it looked like a bomb scene.  I heard a story of a person in the elevator coming out on fire, as I assumed the fuel from the plane naturally drained down the elevator shaft.  I saw one elevator full of firemen going up to the 45th floor and I thought that they were lucky to get a ride part of the way versus those I’d seen walking up. With all the stopping in the stairs, it took me over an hour to get down. I felt relieved to walk out of One World Trade Center, but it was only just starting. We went through the only sprinklers I saw going and we got drenched with cold water for about twenty feet.  I noticed that although One World Trade Center had no lights, the lights were on in the concourse area.  The concourse was the below ground maze of shops that connected the World Trade Center complex.  The concourse looked perfectly normal and intact, except everything was closed.  There were several small groups of people, still exiting, though most people had cleared out by now.  I recall looking to the right down the corridor towards Two World Trade Center while walking towards my subway straight ahead.  No sooner than twenty feet past that corridor, I heard a tremendous rumbling and crashing, and something similar to that whoosh, that rush of air, behind me.  That was building No. 2 coming down.     As the concourses connected, the building falling was pushing a wall of air and debris through that concourse. As I looked over my shoulder and saw that tsunami-like wave coming at me, I had to think quickly -- Jan later recalled that it looked like I was making love to the beam.  Not knowing what to expect from that approaching wave, you better believe I was holding on for dear life!  I was literally sandblasted with fiber particles among everything else imaginable pulverized by the crashing down of that tower.  As my two co-workers laid on the floor, the force blew them along the floor. At that time everything went black as the electricity went.    The scariest part was hearing the continual crashing above as my mind raced to think of what to do next.  Should I try to go into the store through where the windows were?  Would I get hit with falling debris in the store?  I elected to stay with the beam while praying that the marble on the beam above me would not come down and take me out. I couldn’t breathe for two or three minutes as that wave was supersaturated with fine particles.  Every time I opened my mouth to breathe, I got a mouth full of sand.  My shirt was still in my hand holding the beam.  I put it over my mouth, but that didn’t help.  You couldn’t even see your own hand in front of your face.  After a while, it did dissipate enough to breathe.  I did see a dim light fifteen feet away.  I shuffled through the glass to the light as a staging point.  I noticed it was the entrance to the other subway that stops there.  I faintly heard the shaken voice of my co-worker calling out for me.  As they were on the floor in the middle of the corridor, we could not see each other.  I told Jan to come to the light.  He told me that he lost his glasses and couldn’t see.  So I kept repeating for him to “come to my voice” until I saw his figure appear out of the darkness and Larissa was shortly behind.  There we spent a minute assessing the situation. It became apparent that we needed to move on and that we could not wait there all day.  I was thinking that we could go into the subway and take the tunnel to the next station and escape the area.  I opened the door and noticed a white smoke/dust filled staircase going down.  Not knowing what was below, I discounted that plan.  Two other people crossed our path and said we have to go that way pointing back towards Tower No. 1.  I told them no as we just came from there.  He exclaimed how they must have been turned around in the mayhem and got disoriented.    By now, my night vision started to let me make out some of the large pieces of debris in the dark.  I told everyone to hold onto each other and follow me as we formed a human train.  At that time, there was a lady who said she could not walk through the glass as she did not have on any shoes.  Many women discarded their heels going down all those stairs.  As I was about to offer my back, another guy next to me gave her a piggyback out.  Now I was free again to lead out the train.  I could barely make out enough to walk gingerly through the debris and avoid the large signs and everything that fell off the ceiling onto the floor.  It was like walking through a mine field not knowing what the next step would be.  Jan later recalled walking past the Godiva Chocolate’s place.  There was some official in the distance ahead saying, “Come to the light.”  I could not see it, and he had stopped yelling.  I yelled for him to keep yelling.  I continued towards his voice.  Eventually, I saw his flashlight swing back and forth over his head.  We made it to the street level.   There was a brief discussion between him and three firemen who wanted to send us up the escalator to the plaza level. He replied, "No f---ing way." That was all I needed to lead my group to the street level exit. I was later told, there were ten to twelve people in that human chain behind me. People near the corridor to Tower #2, thirty feet behind us, did not get out. When we finally got out of the building on the side of the initial impact, I saw at least a foot of debris literally everywhere.  Cars were destroyed.  It seemed that we were slowing down and letting our guard down again.  Whether the two that I was with were pulling out cell phones or just catching their breath, I was concerned with our pace.  I don’t recall stopping, but I remember telling my two fellow employees, “We have to get out of there as there is a lot of glass above us.”  I was afraid that glass, among other things, would come down on us.  We picked up the pace and walked around the corner past the Post Office.  I remember distinctively walking right down the centerline of the street not trusting anything on either side.  We were three blocks away when we turned around to look at the devastation from our building.  I was amazed that I was there looking at the impact as there are not many floors between my office on the 82nd floor and the top.  We stopped at an EMT truck for Jan’s eyes and Larissa’s leg.  With those injuries being minor, we were dismissed as they were awaiting real casualties from Ground Zero a few blocks away.  As we continued our walk north, we heard this tremendous crashing from behind us.  Suspecting that it was Tower No.1, we started running, not for a moment looking behind us as my concern was getting away from there.  That was about twenty-five minutes after the collapse of the other building.  After we were clear of the area, one of my fellow employees broke down, and he reminded me of all the firemen that were in there.  My prayers went to at least the 35 firemen I saw going up there. As we continued up north, my main focus was now to get word to my wife.  Based on previous training, I knew if I got on camera, word would filter out to my family that I made it out of there.  So I was actively looking for a camera, not for an interview, but just to be seen.  Getting wet then sandblasted during the initial collapse, I was looking like the mud people or the other survivors shown on TV.  Therefore, I didn’t have to try hard to find a camera as the cameras found us.     Although at least two TV stations and several free-lance photographers captured our images, I was not going to stop until I knew my wife knew for sure that I was fine.  All the phones had lines of twelve deep.  Cell phones were limited as the lines were saturated and any towers on the Trade Centers were gone Store fronts were handing out free bottles of water.  One woman offered up her home for us to bathe.  I stopped at a school like building – they have restrooms.  As all the students crammed into one door, we walked towards the three other unused doors.  All of a sudden, the doors opened like the “Pearly Gates” as hidden people came to our attention.  It was New York University (NYU) which is affiliated with the medical center and they had set-up a processing center for survivors staffed with a doctor, counselors, and others.  They were expecting many, but I saw none.  The first thing they did was log us in with our name, address, phone, etc….  I sensed that when the doctor took what seemed trivial information, they were assessing our mental being at that time.  I had those fine fiber glass particles embedded in me, giving me a porcupine sensation.  Jan had particles in his eyes that would require anti-biotic eye drops.  Larisa needed to wait to be taken to the medical facility, as she needed three stitches to close a minor cut.  After an x-ray, they found a piece of glass they needed to remove.  After the doctor checked us, Jan and I went to the men’s room.  We looked bad.  Although there were showers down stairs, all I wanted to do was wash my face and arms to get on my way.  NYU gave us new shirts, as I discarded my blackened tee shirt in the hand towel wastebasket on the wall between the two sinks.  I just feel extremely lucky.  We were just below the initial impact where 30 to 100 feet made the difference.  As the plane lined up, I assumed he put in full power.  As a plane speeds up, it will climb.  There were reports that it climbed near the end.  It missed the 82nd floor.  Then it took a long hour and ten minutes to get down the stairs.  Although it was bad being in the concourse when the first tower came down on top of us, what if we were a little quicker or a little later?  The concourse protected us from the falling debris.  Where we were in the concourse made the difference.  People by the coffee bar by that intersection just behind us did not get out.  What if we waited for help instead of working our way out of the dark?  We were three to five blocks away when the last tower fell.  That twenty-five minute window between the two collapses was that window of opportunity that we needed. But my wife STILL did not know of my whereabouts.  As far as she knew, she was a widow.  Anyone who saw the pictures and knew that we were on the 82nd floor, thought I was a goner.  My brother-in-law upstate said, “We were sure he was dead.  We didn’t find out until maybe one or two in the afternoon. My daughter is 12, and we told her the truth. She came home from school about 12:30 and she knew Uncle Chris was in there. I’m thinking, he’s dead, he’s dead. There’s no way he could have made it out of there.”  My daughter’s school was letting the students out early.  She told her gym teacher she was concerned for her father.  The teacher asked her where did I work.  When my daughter responded the Trade Center, the teacher cringed with nothing to say.  The husband of a good friend of my wife walked three miles to keep her company during this time of uncertain waiting. When I finally got through to my wife on the phone, the first word that I was alive, more than five hours after this attack started.  She was startled that it was me.  She couldn’t hear me speaking as the background erupted with numerous people cheering.  Back Home:  There were two schools of thought: those who were numb fearing the worst and those who knew that I would make it based on my background (or they wanted to believe that).  My ten year old daughter is of the later school of thought and knew I would make it.  She probably pictures me with a big “S” on my chest.  There is nothing like sitting in your own house and on that day I could do no wrong.  I wanted pizza, so my other brother-in-law got me my late lunch.  Tired of hearing all the preliminary reports filled with all the speculation, I figured I would watch the news the next day when details would be sorted out.  With infected sinuses breathing all those particles, I went to rest as my wife took all the calls.  The smell of death, as it was called, was in the air for days.  One night, I had my air conditioner on to keep the smell out.  For two days, I had black solid residue coming out of my nose. Did everyone get out?  Out of the sixty something people that work there, only thirty something were probably there.  We also had at least three visitors.  We did lose three employees who I constantly think about.  They found the remains of one fellow employee three to four weeks after the attack.  The toughest part, was the children left behind. How has this affected me?  Either I am hardened, or so focused that I saw limited goriness, or it has not hit me yet, or some combination thereof.  I have been constantly busy and I tend not to think of the past.  People feel funny asking if I mind telling the story, but I am just happy to be around to tell it.   (World Trade Center Photo taken by Lloyd Dorfman in December 2001)   What Do You Think?: Send an e- mail to editor@fairlawnnews.com or post a message on the Fair Lawn News Discussion Forum.