The piercing screams of a woman pleading for help, the suffocating darkness of a collapsed stairwell, and the haunting sound of a building crying out in agony are the sounds that defined the worst day of Janice’s life. On the morning of September 11, 2001, she was on the 84th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center, beginning what she thought was the biggest adventure of her life. Instead, she found herself in a nightmare, fighting not only to escape the crumbling tower but to survive the collapse of the world around her.
Having just relocated from London to New York on August 23rd, Janice was still settling into her role as a receptionist and money broker for Euro Brokers. The morning of the attack had started like any other, with breakfast, faxes, and transfer orders. The initial explosion of the North Tower impact was dismissed as construction noise, a common sound in the bustling city.
It was only a frantic telephone call from her former boss, Robin, in London that alerted her to the catastrophe unfolding directly behind her. He screamed down the phone, telling her a plane had hit the building and to get out immediately.
She ran from her desk, encountering colleagues in the hallway who were unaware of the severity. They told her the impact was in the neighboring tower and that their building was stable. Confusion reigned, but two fire marshals on the floor shepherded her down the stairs.
The air was filled with casual small talk as people descended, none initially aware of the magnitude of the terror above. Then, the first announcement echoed through the stairwell, insisting the building was stable and urging workers to return to their offices. Many, including Janice, obeyed, re-entering the building at the 70th floor to await elevators.
She stood in the elevator lobby, her most memorable and charming colleague, Paul, and his friend Bobby, who had been her anchor since her arrival, approached. When a second announcement insisted they return to their desks, Paul and Bobby turned to lead the way back up. “Come on, old woman,” Paul teased, ushering her forward.
They turned through a doorway, walking ahead of her, quickening their pace out of sight. Janice hesitated, and she watched them walk down that corridor, an image that would remain forever etched in her mind. They were on their way to their deaths, never leaving that floor as the South Tower began to fail, perishing in the initial impact zone of the upper floors.
The decision to follow them was interrupted when the group she was with re-entered the stairwell. They were heading back up when the world changed. A violent, loud bang echoed, the lights cut out, and the ceiling grid gave in around them, plunging them into total darkness.
They had been on the 84th floor, above the impact zone where the second plane had hit, and they were trying to walk back up. The building began to sway, creaking under the immense pressure. Janice and the others, including the unidentified man who had been guiding her, were thrown to the ground as the floor beneath them groaned and the entire structure shifted.
When the lights flickered back on, they saw the ceiling had collapsed, and a person they had been about to seek guidance from.
Roberto, a quick-minded hero among the group, sprang into action. The jarring reality was revealed instantly. He and a colleague tore at the wreckage to uncover the door they had just passed through, but instead of stairs, they were met by a wall of burning darkness and chaos.
In an instant, those were the last moments of the tower’s core. The single flight they had been on was obliterated, the rest of the stairwell and all of the floors below the impact flashpoint on 84 were completely destroyed, opening up a vision of a fiery hell that consumed the center of the building. The screams echoed as a woman’s screams from further down was met with the horrifying silence.
Finding themselves stuck on a floor with no way down, the air filled with thick smoke and falling debris. The group huddled together in the small corridor, gasping for air. It was the fate of the floor above, yet a miracle unfolded before them.
A secret door, its presence concealed and without visible handles, suddenly revealed a path. It opened into an alternate corridor, a staircase that would become legendary for its preservation. This staircase, known as Stairwell A, had somehow survived the plane’s impact and the massive structural damage.
Without hesitation, they pushed through the debris and began their descent.
The descent was a slow, grotesque journey. In front of them was a horrific parade of the injured. A woman had a massive gash, her arm nearly severed from her shoulder, the bone visible as she wept in shock.
Another man had glass embedded in his chest. A woman was screaming that she couldn not see, blood from a head wound running into her eyes. The walk was a grim landscape of dark, dust, and the constant shaking of the building.
A grinding and screeching of massive structural groans could be heard and felt everywhere. The ad peril was Gabriel, one of the few walking wounded; a European colleague who they had started with, was running a man named Bob, who significantly did not know but who was also swimming along.
The lady with the severed arm was slowing her down dramatically. The building was swaying and crying, a sound imprinted and forever doom. They reached a point where they had only the ground floor, but the injured woman’s body and spirit faded.
She sat down, resisting any effort to get her moving, insisting that the others had to leave her behind. Bob refused. Without a word, he scooped her up onto his back and carried her the remaining levels.
They met more firefighters, some ascending, and were guided to the ground floor. The lobby was chaos, filled with glass, water, and fleeing staff. A police officer pointed, shouting at them not to look up.
The entire tower was on fire, and they ran across the concourse to safety. They were herded across the street to the base at St. Paul’s.
Bob grabbed Janice’s hand and they made for her apartment, the first time they saw the grotesque gaping hole in the tower.
In her apartment, they watched the televisions as the South Tower collapsed into a blanket of dust. As they stood in disbelief, the windows vibrated violently, and the apartment filled with petrifying darkness as a massive dust cloud engulfed everything. Janice clung to her sofa, sobbing, repeating, “I’m going to die, I’m going to die,” as the glass shattered and the floor shook.
The roar of the building and the single after the second tower collapsed a huge roar, and the windows turned night black. The dust darkened even the daylight, creating the black of an unrelenting savage summer.
She survived that collapse, the second collapse, after Bob had left to find his own family. Devastated, she packed her belongings, walking down the fire escape, wading through giant debris. She stood in no-man’s land, trapped on the ground floor of her building in the dark, with no lights, no water, and the acrid smell of the dust.
The destruction was total. She traversed the chaos on foot, screaming out for help, steering through a city obscured completely by the cloud, a city that had become quiet. She eventually found herself at Canal Street, guided by strangers who gave her a ticket, a phone, and walked her board a train to Queens.
It was Philadelphia Friday when there were the number 61. Euro Brokers, 61 people who did not just work with her, they were her family. Wracked with survivors’ guilt, she lived through the outrageous moments, losing her friends who were there for the company, the life she had just moved to.
The man Bob, who was formally linked to the tale, was actually the same all-round colleague, the man Bob who showed kindness to the victims, was her own extraordinary savior, although they were connected by chance.
Janice recalls that September 11th was the day she saw the worst of humanity, but it was also the day she saw the best of humanity. The selflessness of everyone the fire marshals, the dry cleaner on the phone, the strangers, and the magnificent New Yorkers who guided hr every single step, gave her the strength to fight for her life. “I look for Bob, for that magical door,” she said.
“I say that the day wasn’t my day. I wake up every day feeling grateful and humbled.” Her life has never been the same, but she survived, and she has the mission to go and honor that.
