It’s September 11 today…

Busybee5

Tue, Sep 12 2023, 6:48 am

Highstrung wrote:

The saddest thing was that he stayed and worked non stop because he was so determined to find survivors. He was devastated and I think has suffered PTSD since. He never talks about it. Though he did post a photo yesterday of him wearing the type of mask that looks like a gas mask . Don’t know what it’s called . He and his boss were both members in Hatzolah and they were together on that day . He happened to have had that type of mask with him in his truck and that’s how he had one. Many other people weren’t so lucky . His boss who was like a father to him passed away a few years ago and the doctors said the type of cancer he had was due to 9/11.
I still remember calling him when I heard on the news that all emergency personnel are called to assist . This was even before the second tower was hit and they had no clue what really hit the first tower . When I called him, he was already almost there. After the towers fell I felt so guilty thinking that I made him go there . But really he had already gone. It was a crazy day and week for me. Yesterday I remembered the day but I realized that I almost intentionally don’t want to remember that day . It’s very hard for me to relive my emotions and fear of that day even though I was home safe in my apartment .

Wow! I'm sure he does have ptsd, would be impossible not to after seeing what he saw, and being there. Terrible! And for all thosee close to him that died from it. They're all true heroes.

mynameismom

Tue, Sep 12 2023, 6:56 am

wow, its crazy how that PTSD is still there. I'm reading this thread and trying so hard not to fall apart. ALL the feelings immediately pop up again. The confusion, the horror, helplessness, desperation and grief.

For years on every anniversary I had to stay off social media if I wanted to function. I couldn't listen to the radio while driving because I'd start crying and have to pull over until I calmed down.

mha3484

Tue, Sep 12 2023, 7:28 am

seeker wrote:

I'm not going to go through relating my personal experiences of the day (did that in a couple of other threads in the past) but what strikes me is just that there's a whole generation that never knew the security I grew up with. War was something that happened in Israel and in history. We had felt so safe. It changed so abruptly - maybe there were some people less naive but I think most Americans were completely blindsided not just by the attack but by the whole concept that there were people so out to get us.

Besides all the details and the tragedy and the images and the smells, what stands out in my mind the most about that day was the confusion. Somewhere around the web is an audio of I think 911 dispatch that day, or if you listen to the live (at the time) news radio or TV, you hear it so clearly - how deeply and thoroughly nobody knew what hit them. And why, and where from, and what next. I don't know what was scarier, the confusion or the fire. You didn't know if the world was ending or what.

I was thinking a lot about this. I was 17 in 12th grade on 9/11. I was 1000 miles away from NY but all of downtown chicago emptied and everyone was home because we had no idea what was going on.

I went with my mother and grandmother to look at colleges a month later. We flew into the airport in Boston and it was a whole new world. For my first 17 years no one got searched at an airport, no one got wanded. The shoes and liquids came later but I had a whole life of feeling the safety seeker said before it flipped on a dime.

Chickensoupprof

Tue, Sep 12 2023, 8:17 am

I remember my father came home he heard something on the radio and said 'HAVE YOU SEEN IT A TERROR ATTACK IN NEW YORK' We turned on the TV.

I was 7, my brother was 3 and I made two towers with Duplo and took a toy airplane and said 'So Osama bin Laden decided that this airplane should go to the Twin Towers' and I remember I talked about it in school and other people called my mum and said 'Esther needs to stop talking about those stuff we are not interested in politics how does she even know such things?!' Of course that was another reason to make me a patholigical piece of **

So that was how it was in the Netherlands.

Shuly

Tue, Sep 12 2023, 11:12 am

I was also in seminary that year. My friend's father worked in the Twin Towers but he was late to work that day and they were hit while he was on his way to work.
I remember that we were all trying to call our parents but the phone lines were down and we weren't really sure what happened because there were so many conflicting reports.

sequoia

Tue, Sep 12 2023, 11:33 am

I was in 12th grade and checking my email on the computer in the library when someone ran in and said, “A plane has just crashed into the world trade center!” Some people went on the roof of the school to watch. I didn’t. We were all crying and in shock until the principal announced that the high school could go. Luckily I lived in Manhattan so I could get home; some of my classmates had to walk to the other burroughs.

In other words, I was in Kyiv for Chernobyl, in NYC for 9/11, in Brooklyn for Sandy, and in Kyiv for the current war.

HOW AM I STILL ALIVE?

Busybee5

Tue, Sep 12 2023, 12:58 pm

sequoia wrote:

You're a trooper 💪

doodlesmom

Tue, Sep 12 2023, 1:42 pm

vintagebknyc wrote:

Father Mychal Judge, the openly-gay priest who was the head chaplain of the NYFD

No, Daniel Suhr died before from a jumper
But Mychal was certified a death 1, he was taken out right away…and he was at the medical examiner first. he was killed when the south tower collapsed. ( from debris that crashed into the north tower lobby.)

Highstrung

Tue, Sep 12 2023, 1:45 pm

sequoia wrote:

Wow! No words .

Hashem_Yaazor

Tue, Sep 12 2023, 2:03 pm

sequoia wrote:

Because Someone thinks the world needs you here.

saralem

Tue, Sep 12 2023, 5:53 pm

I was at work (in a hospital) and we were all in shock gathered around a big TV. The head doctor told us no one could leave work early as we are considered essential workers. There was fear that our city (OOT) would be targeted too. When I finally left work, our downtown area was deserted! It was so strange and very frightening. My oldest son was 18 and I was petrified of a war and a mandatory draft. It felt like a helpless time.

Busybee5

Wed, Sep 13 2023, 1:07 am

mochacoffee wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18lsxFcDrjo&t=96s&ab_channel=EyepopProductions

This is a short video on the boat rescue that I show my students every year.

Wow, no words! This was my first time hearing of this boat rescue. It should be a league on it's own. The fear must've been something else Crying

Busybee5

Wed, Sep 13 2023, 3:37 am

Fox wrote:

The small details haunt me. The one I think about most is jumpers stapling business cards all over their bodies so that they would be identified and their families would know what happened to them.

I didn't know these details, that's insane!! So sad. It doesn't make sense when we think of what they went through in their final moments, knowing that there was no way they'd make it out alive. Heartbreaking.