9/11 Survivor's Miraculous Escape

 

9/11 Survivor's Miraculous Escape

A few years ago, a patient came to me who was one of the survivors of the 911 attack on the Twin Towers. She shared her story with me. Sue was working in the South Tower. She could see smoke coming from the North Tower through her window. Then she heard the blast.

She felt the building shake. She got scared. She got up from her desk, and she started to leave. She went to the stairs, and then she heard the announcement, which said, "Everybody, please go back to your desk. Remain in your office. Do not leave. This building is safe." But somehow she felt uneasy. She felt unsafe. She ignored the warning, and she started galloping down the stairs.  She was overweight. She was middle-aged. She had back pain, knee pain, but she did not stop.

She kept on climbing down the stairs one at a time. Sue told me that there was some voice, something deep inside her, that told her to leave the building, not to stay there anymore. In the middle, she met someone else who told her, "You go back to your office space. The building is safe. Do not try to come down." There was a lot of confusion. After the North Tower was hit, a Port Authority official told everyone not to leave the South Tower because they feared that if everyone started leaving and went down, debris from the North Tower would fall on them and hurt them.

Some went back, but she did not. She kept persevering. She kept taking the stairs one at a time, and when she came out into the open, she saw the sky. When she looked back, she saw that the South Tower, where she was working, had also been hit. Black smoke was coming out of the South Tower.  She kept moving as far as she could, running away from the building. This is one of the stories that moved me deeply.  Let me know in your comments below what you think happened. Was it divine providence, coincidence, or mere luck?