My 9/11 Story from Ground Zero

It all began on 9/11/01 at 8:40am for me! I worked at Arnell Group in NYC at 130 Prince Street. I would take the C/E train into town and exit at Spring street and walk the few blocks over. My coworker/cube mate Lucy Jones sometimes would also arrive at the same time as me and today was one of those days. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was such a beautiful NYC Sept morning!!! Crisp, cool and breezy. Blue bubbly sky. Wearing my fav jeans, white tank and Red long sleeve button down. The moment I stepped out of the subway I looked up to admire the sky. Lucy was also exiting at the same time. We joined together to walk the few blocks to work. All of a sudden everyone started stopping and looking up at the sound of a very low plane. NYC is a No-fly zone for commercial aircraft and it was obviously just that. It was extremely loud and headed right toward the WTC. Lucy’s father Christopher Jones, worked at the WTC on the 94th floor. Everything started moving faster as everyone around us were freaking out and watching in awe as the 1st plane hit the WTC. Many were stating it had to be an accident and many were stating it had to be terrorist. We had a very direct view from where we stood. Lucy knew in that moment that the plane had hit her dad’s office. He had worked there for years and knew he was already at work and what office it was, from where we stood. The blood curdling screams began as she hit the ground thrashing. 19 years later those sounds I heard out of her, have never left my mind and sounds the same today. As I spent those 15 minutes helping gather Lucy off the curb to where she could walk, it was a blur around me. It was a very short 15 minutes before our confirmation was given. We stood up to head to the office, just as we hear the roar of another plane. Now is when the world erupted around me into mad chaos. We all watched as the 2nd plane hit the WTC. We all started yelling to run to safety, it had to be terrorist and planned attack. There was no question after watching not 1 but 2 planes hit the WTC. The streets erupted into chaos. It took us the shortest time ever to get to our office. I got Lucy to our office where Edwin my best friend and coworker was waiting. All I remember for the next hour was Edwin helping arrange for a company car to meet us at the office to get her out of there and home to her mother in Long Island and consoling Lucy as she tried to call every family member, her dads’ cell and office number. Getting a car wasn’t going fast enough, as the city was going into instant lock down. A lockdown I haven’t thought ever possible in the US. The scurry to get out of there in the city was beyond words. You could see the panic on their faces and feel the fear. Finally, our car arrived to take her home. I couldn’t let her go alone. I decided to get her to Long Island and then Edwin would help me get back into the city. You have to keep in mind at this time in our society, the sources of travel didn’t have the same searchability and availability. We sat in the back of the car and the driver proceeded to find a way out of the city which was quite tricky. Lucy and I were staring through the rearview window watching the WTC up in smoke, planes sticking out burning, hopeless feeling people jumping from the buildings solo or holding hands, people running everywhere in shock, woman with children screaming and crying, cars jammed on the roads, honking everywhere. I didn’t expect things to turn worse but at around 10:30 am it did just what I couldn’t imagine. Just as we were turned right to head north, the building started coming down. It just went straight down in seconds!!! It was very much like a movie scene that I have tried to block for the last 19 years. As we watched the building crush over 1,000 feet down, there was a massive smoke cloud chasing after our car heading away from it. We couldn’t move the car fast enough and the cloud was getting closer. Our driver found a way right and got us out of there. Lucy began throwing her body against the window and any hard surface in the back seat she could find. It’s one thing knowing your father is at work but maybe on another floor, to then knowing in that instant he was gone. The building was fully collapsed and all that was in it! And so was Lucy. Broken just like the world around us. I think we got to a point of shock. No one spoke. We just listened to every News station that was broadcasting info. We stopped at the Hilton Times Square to let my boyfriend/kid’s dad Sarito know our plan. Cellphones had no reception to call. My mom had my daughter Halle in NJ just a few miles away. We had a plan and proceeded forward. What should have been a 1-hour drive took us 7 hours to get through however we made it to Long Island. 7 very short hours it seemed in that state of mind. I watched as Lucy left the car to head up the driveway to her Mom. She was like a robot just moving with no life energy. Once she made it inside, me and the driver headed on our trek back to NYC. That was the last time I ever saw my friend or even spoke to her. She never came back to work or responded to me. Though she lives with me daily inside. Just as the sun had set, we made it as far as Queens before the driver found out he would not be able to enter NYC via his car and would have to drop me somewhere to find my own way back. I was dropped off at the corner store by the train in hopes to find a way. At this point my fighter side kicked in full force after realizing it was dark, I’m a woman, alone now, in an unfamiliar part of Queens, and have to get from Queens across NYC to the other side to NJ where my home and 3 1/2 yr. old daughter was waiting for me! Hours went by with 1 after another of different trains or buses and a lot of walking! I honestly can’t remember all the details of how I got home that night. I had to ask Edwin to confirm. He said we managed to find the last ferry boat to get me across and home sometime after midnight. I was in a state of shock. Every station was broadcasting what was going on and I couldn’t get it off my mind. In the morning of Wednesday Sept 12th about 7am I decided I couldn’t sit home and watch. I had to help. I headed back into NYC to the Javits Center where the volunteer site was set up. There were hundreds to thousands of us lined up to volunteer. Every walk of life imaginable pulled together to help! We all were waiting to be screened for what services we could provide. The Volunteer force started walking through asking for anyone who had any medical background at all to step forward. Living in Haiti, working at a Tuberculosis & Aids children’s hospital there, and my intro to nursing in college was all they needed to take me. I was rushed in to the Javits center, info taken, was given boots, clothes and masks and gloves to suit up, and immediately put on a bus after we were ready. I was on a bus of strangers not knowing where we were going or what we were doing. The army personnel at the front started talking as the bus drove downtown. He instructed us that we were headed into a war zone that would look like nothing we have seen. Our jobs were to set up stations to treat the first responders and volunteers. We were asked to pair up and not be alone. My partner was sitting right next to me and we both looked at each other and nodded. Diane was her name. She was a nurse. I remember her face vividly! Wish I could remember her last name to find her. As we proceeded down town we were told this is Ground Zero and where you will be stationed. It was worse than I had seen the day before. The world around us was covered in grey dust. Every inch you saw was grey! Every building, street, car, sign, anything was grey! Not a human to be seen but us. Erie feelings. Feeling I can’t put into words were going through our minds. Diane and I tried to process it and discuss our plan for triaging. Paper, furniture, cars, signs, everything everywhere. Roads blocked with debris every turn. We had to take alternate routes to get to our spot. We got to the point that vehicles couldn’t go past. They dropped us there and gave us instructions where to walk to and check in at. We exited the bus and watched it drive away. This was it. No turning back now for this determined to help 22-year-old. The smell in the air was far worse than the site or the feelings. You could smell death. You could smell the bodies burning. I knew this smell after living in Haiti for 4 ½ years. We all went different directions with our partners. I can’t remember the name of our corner to triage at but can see it clearly like it was yesterday. It was a doorless destroyed Burger King on the corner right in the heart of Ground Zero. Our view was the structure everyone remembers. The waffle coned metal structure standing from the rubble. People were everywhere digging through the rubble for anything human or identifiable. They were passing white buckets down an assembly line of people. We jumped right into setting up and treating for who knows how long. Time didn’t exist at Ground Zero. There were unstable buildings from the crash of the others, that are a part of the World Trade Center. All of a sudden there was yelling that the building we were working in was one of the unstable ones they thought was about to collapse. We all rushed to gather supplies and get everyone out as fast as possible. We were struggling to get out. I felt so trapped with everyone going in all directions. We all were fumbling over each other to get out fast! I had to get down from the upstairs area I was set up in. Without a safe station anymore, we were sent out to walk around Ground Zero treating the firefighters. We fanny packed it up and headed out into the far worse war zone. Imagine the dust, debris, chemicals, harmful materials in the air. The firefighters would have this in their eyes, nose and lungs. We flushed their eyes, bandaged injuries on the spot so they could keep working, and supplied water and resources needed like fresh masks. I know for a fact we couldn’t keep the masks on. They were covered in gunk so fast and you wouldn’t have a fresh one and couldn’t breathe so you took it off. You couldn’t tell what race anyone was. We were all grey dust covered and we were all there to help. No race or anything mattered and it was beautiful in the midst of the HELL. Hours seemed liked minutes and some minutes seemed like hours as we walked around Ground Zero treating on the spot. When we had no one to treat we would jump in and help dig through the rubble as well. There were screams and cheering every time the diggers thought they found someone. It became the thing you listened for while in a fog of just digging, putting anything human or identifiable maybe into the buckets, and passing those buckets down the line. If it was possibly identifiable like identification, body parts, anything, it went into the bucket and the bucket went down the line to whoever was collecting it. Just imagine with the deaths and way the buildings collapsed what you might find and we found it and put it in our buckets. These are images, smells, sounds, and feelings that never leave me. The sunken gut gnawing disgust of who could have done this is still there. I never saw the end of the line just held my spot right under the waffle metal structure digging. Some memories are so clear and some so foggy. I remember the screaming began and this time it didn’t stop. A lot of people headed up the rubble pile to where they believed they found someone alive. I just watched not fully aware. In 19 years, I haven’t ever tried to find out if they did rescue someone in that moment. I can’t watch or listen to anything pertaining to 9/11 for 19 years. It was like a dream but the worse one you could be in and it was so real! More screaming began but this was not excitement like right before. This was screaming of fear. There was another building cracking and they thought it was collapsing. They screamed to run get out of the way and run is exactly what I did. I ran north and didn’t stop. I ran and ran and ran! I got to a statue in a wide-open area and decided to call my mom for guidance and I was in hysterics. I don’t know if I found a payphone or got reception for a moment. She told me that I had served my part and I needed to get home and live for my daughter and not lose my life. Halle had been so worried. She had been to work with me and knew about the twin towers and had been to them. She was almost 4 and very smart! She knew I was there. I couldn’t make this anymore traumatic on her and I was scared shitless so I decided to head home. I kept heading north. It was miles. The streets were covered in anything imaginable. Papers were like snowflakes upon snowflakes. I stopped to gather my breath and looked down. There was a business paper from 1 company to another and was signed by CHRISTOPHER JONES!!! Yes, Lucy my friend’s father that died in front of us days before. I took it with me in hopes to one day give it to her. In the thousands of papers scattered, I found his! I think this created more shock and awe and I can’t tell you how I got to the train station miles away. I know I called my savior Edwin! I made it through NYC and to the train station that would get me across to NJ. I thought the nightmare was ending until I see there aren’t any more trains going across. I crumbled in the train station, covered in the grey filth, smelling of death and fire, on the floor in tears. Time went by then Edwin was there to the rescue. He always was! He said I was in shock crying hysterically telling him about the dead bodies everywhere and what I went through. He literally picked my limp in shock body off the subway floor and got me on a bus headed home. We made it there about 2am. Halle was with my mom. Sarito my boyfriend at the time/kid’s dad was stuck at work in NYC Times Square as Security. I was just there physically and my HELL began. The last few days was the worlds HELL and I was in auto pilot doing what I knew I had too. Now I was sitting alone in my room in my wicker rocking chair staring at the TV watching it all unfold. I sat and I sat and I sat in that rocking chair. Days not wanting to eat, sleep, bathe, change clothes, anything. I was in complete shock. Weeks went by. The depression got worse. The anxiety got worse. The clothes I wore to work at ground zero and the letter sat folded in my closet. Everyday I would look at it. Eventually Sarito put them somewhere away. Until the news started saying how dangerous the air was and these clothes were covered in the toxins. I disposed of them immediately following that. It’s as though they are still in the closet. It’s that clear in my mind. My family was concerned with how I was coping and suggested getting help. There were resources being offered in NY and I eventually called them. They helped me get up and live again. Or at least act as I was. I didn’t go to the city though. Avoided like the plague. Once downtown NYC opened back up, we had to go back to work. The office where it all began. Trains were still running just differently with signs everywhere stating the obvious. The smell of death and fire and fumes were in the air for months. The smell that lives with me forever! The world that was so rich and maintained around us in this area of NYC was taped, boarded, grey with dust, smoke in air but we were back in it. Headed to normalcy. Normalcy never came. Lucy never came back to work and was MIA. We all put on a face to get back to life. Bills had to be paid. So, the numbing came. It seemed like forever that it was obvious around you what happened. It was a constant memory with the smoke in the air we breathed. I stayed there till 2003 till my new baby required me to stay home. I think she was a life saver. She was a life I needed to give me hope and focus again. I blocked it out and lived life. My health began to slowly go down at this point. I feel before this time of life I was very healthy. The fainting spells began and PTSD/anxiety worsened. And each year another illness would begin or worsen (GERD, lipomas, papilloma’s, unexplained digestive issues and more) and have till current. There’s mental, emotional and physical damage due to working within the danger zone of Ground Zero and also volunteering directly at the site. All mine are all on the WTC Health Coverage list. I never thought I would tell this story however the universe had a mind of their own. I need healing in many ways and hopefully this will bring that on. In this process I asked myself would you do it again? I cried and said NO WAY. I regret it. The truth is I say that and would do different. The 19 years of suffering was worth being able to help others! Think of so many others who suffer for us! That’s why we are here to be the change in the world that’s needed. And anytime there’s crisis I will always run to help. I don’t regret that! This story has taught me that I live by Courage! Courage is what brought me through every moment of this tragedy. Courage is what I have today to finally talk and allow healing mentally and physically. Courage is what I will have to face the fears that have held me back for 19 years. Let my story bring you hope & courage!!!

Erin Hudson