scar tissue
LIFETIME SPONSOR
- Dec 27, 2000
- 1,429
- 0
Thought that some of you may want to look at this recount of yesterdays events from the perspective of a survivor. I do not personally know this person. This person is a client of one of my clients. Never the less it is very interesting.
Subject: FW: First Hand Account from Adaytum
This note was sent by an employee of Adaytum who was in the WTC at the time
of the attack.
> Hello everyone,
> As you know, I had kind of a rough day yesterday. All Adaytum and
> D&T people who were on our call got out quickly and are all fine. Other
> than my swollen feet from walking all day, I am personally no worse for
> the wear.
> We got to the WTC at about 8:30 to prepare for our 9:00
> presentation...nothing out of the ordinary there. We were issued photo
> IDs at the security desk to gain access to the towers...I wondered whether
> I was supposed to save it or not for the next time I visited the WTC.
> John Sindel had gotten his laptop booted and the projector ready for the
> demo when out of the blue there was a large explosion and the building
> lurched to one side - my immediate thought were that it was either an
> earthquake, or another bomb in the basement. The building only swayed for
> a few seconds, as we were simply frozen waiting to see what was going to
> happen. The building stabilized, and we all quickly left the room and
> headed to the stairs. I made a point to go to the other side of the room
> to grab my laptop case and my suit jacket...I was sporting my spiffy new
> Italian suit that day, and sure as hell wasn't going to leave my jacket
> behind, or my laptop. Figured it would be days before any items left in
> the buildings would be returned.
> So, from the 63rd floor we joined the exodus out of the building.
> Everything was amazingly orderly...no one was hysterical or otherwise
> freaking out, although a few were trembling and crying a bit, but you
> can't blame them for that. Thing was, we all figured that what ever had
> happened was over, and we were safe, although inconvenienced by having to
> climb down all those stairs to leave the building. The thought didn't
> enter my mind that the actual structure of the building had been
> compromised...had anyone understood exactly how grave our situation was, I
> don't think we would have been quite as cool and collected as we were. On
> the way to the stairs, we could see debris (a LOT of debris) falling from
> above - we reasoned that it must have been a plan that hit the building
> above us, rather than anything that had occured below us. Immediately
> upon entering the stairwell, there was a distinct stench that no one could
> recognize, figuring it was just some kind of smoke. I knew immediately
> what it was, though, because I've smelled enough different fuels burning
> in my life to recognize that these had to be the fumes from the burning
> airplane fuel - which meant if nothing else, we were perhaps at risk of
> carbon monoxide poisoning. I didn't mention my analysis of the stench -
> figured there was nothing we could do about it, and didn't want to give
> everybody a reason to panic. People coming in from the floors were
> bringing wet paper towels with them, so eventually we all were trying to
> breathe through those, which helped a bit. Somewhere around the 40th
> floor there was a guy in a wheelchair, clearly unable to move on his own,
> in the stairwell with a couple people attending to him trying to figure
> out how to get him out of the building. A few floor later, a woman was
> being attended to for one reason or another - later, we saw an eyewitness
> report on TV from a guy who evidently had been in our stairwell too (he
> started on the 65th floor) - he related seeing the guy in the wheelchair,
> and a woman who was having a heart attack on the way down.
> Things progressed fairly smooothly until we got into the low 30s -
> then the descent slowed as we had reached the total maximum capacity of
> the stairs, and it was like stop-n-go traffic in Chicago the rest of the
> way down. On the 25th floor or so we were met by firefighters coming up
> the stairs. They were completely exhausted, not only from the climb but
> all the equipment they were carrying. The fire chief (said so on his hat)
> sat down on the stairs next to me, as I was standing on the platform at
> that floor, to wait for his men to break into the locked door to that
> floor. The firefighters wouldn't say much, other than confirming that it
> was a plane that hit the building, and that we simply needed to continue
> down. When the men had opened the door, the chief got up and collected
> his equipment, but dropped a pry bar on his way to the door. I picked up
> the pry bar and shouted "Chief!" to get his attention, but he was already
> gone - one of the other firefighters took the pry bar, and probably 20 of
> them entered that floor. I think they must have been planning to use the
> elevators to go up higher - I don't believe there was any damage to that
> floor.
> Somewhere around the 15th floor a water pipe must have burst in the
> building - the stairs became a waterfall, and women were being advised to
> put their shoes back on due to broken glass at the bottom. Eventually we
> made it to ground level...I will spare you a description of what I saw on
> the ground outside the building. It was like a scene out of a movie, or a
> war reel. I chose not to look at the scene for too long, and proceeded as
> directed by police to the basment level, which connected the towers to a
> mall on the other side of the street. The floor was covered in broken
> glass and debris, and a good 3 to 6 inches of water. We made our way to
> the mall, and back up and out the other side. Once outside the building
> we turned to view the damage to the tower...and were amazed. We had no
> idea the damage was that bad - and we also didn't know that the second
> tower had been hit. At first I reasoned that probably the whole plane
> didn't hit the first tower, and the wreckage probably continued to the
> second - it wasn't until someone on the street told us that there was a
> second plane. The police corraled us to about a block away, and from that
> point there were thousands of spectators gawking at the surreal view
> provided them. There were about 8 of us, including both Adaytum and D&T
> people, at that presentation...we had gotten seperated on the way down,
> and at this point I was accompanied by Graham Mew and Scott Wallace (D&T).
> We had no idea where the others were, such as John Sindel and Steve Peck,
> but we were confident that they had gotten out of the building.
> We lingered for a couple minutes, then decided to just get away from
> the scene and all the ruckus. We walked for several blocks in no
> particular direction but "away" before happening to run into another of
> our D&T compatriates (Bob). We stopped at a small bakery while the other
> guys stood in line to use the pay phone outside - cellphones were useless
> as all the circuits were used up. I bought a small coffee and a pastry of
> some kind and waited for them inside. I wasn't in any hurry to call
> anyone, since I didn't think any of my friends or family knew I was in NY
> anyway. In a short while, Bob and Graham and Scott had made thier calls,
> and Bob suggested that perhaps we should just head to another D&T office
> in the city, since we really had no where else to go. Bad thing was that
> the office was up near Broadway - about 50 blocks away, and it wasn't like
> we were going to be able to get a taxi.
> On the way out of the bakery, we turned to look at the towers and
> suddenly realized that something was terribly wrong...there was only 1
> tower. One of the towers had collapsed while we weren't watching, which
> shocked us all. None of us thought there was any threat of such a
> thing...I relalized that probably the jet fuel (we'd by then found out
> that they were fully fueled commercial airliners that hit) soaked thorugh
> the interior of the tower, and the heat from it's fire compromised the
> metal superstructure of the building. It was also while at the bakery
> that we were told the Pentagon had been hit as well, and that this was
> clearly an act of terrorism, rather than some aweful accident.
> We continued walking towards Broadway, occasionally pausing to
> listen to someone's car radio, as people congregated around them to hear
> the radio reports. A short while later, the people we were walking
> towards on the sidewalk gasped, and we turned to see the other tower
> crumble and fall. The resulting cloud of smoke was enormous...and that
> was all you could see from then on - there wasn't enough of the towers
> left to see at all.
> Eventually our tired and swollen feet made it to the D&T building,
> where we relaxed a bit and made some phone calls. We watched TV for a bit
> while pondering what to do - we all just wanted to get out of the city,
> but the roads and trains had all been shut down. After watching the news
> for a while, where we actually saw footage of the second plane hitting the
> second tower, we were advised that the trains had resumed service out of
> the city (but not it). So we took to the street once more and headed to
> Penn Station, where after a moderate wait we boarded a train on the
> Trenton line, which was the line that Graham had used to come into the
> city that day. His car was parked at the Metro Park station - but he had
> left his keys in the WTC. After conferring with his wife about possibly
> getting a second set of keys to that station, we instead decided to ride
> all the way to Trenton, where one of Graham's friends picked us up and
> took us to Graham's house, on the outskirts of the Philadelphia area. We
> arranged for hotel rooms, went to Target to buy a few essentials, and by
> the time I had gotten to my hotel room and showered, I was so tired that I
> simply couldn't keep awake even to eat, and was sound asleep by probably
> 8:30.
> So, here we are...Scott and I are probably going to get a car and
> drive home, or maybe Amtrak. Should be home in a day or two. I left my
> cell phone in Graham's car overnight to recharge (my wall-socket charger
> was left in my hotel room - in a hotel about 1 block from the WTC. I have
> no idea if that hotel even exists anymore), but will have it with me for
> the rest of the trip home. The number is ###-###-####. My total losses
> for the event are just what I had left in my hotel room (I was planning on
> staying the night there again yesterday) - just clothes and boots and
> assorted other stuff. A few of the rest of us lost our laptops, etc., but
> not a whole lot of that matters much. We got lucky, and that's all there
> is to it. Neither strength, nor skill, nor knowledge would have saved you
> had you been in the floors above where the planes hit. By the simple
> stroke of luck that we were 20 floors below the impact we we able to
> survive. I am grimly rather sure that no one who was above the impact
> zone made it out. But we did...with my precious little laptop...think
> maybe I'll have it bronzed or something.
>
>
> (name deleted)
>
>
>
Subject: FW: First Hand Account from Adaytum
This note was sent by an employee of Adaytum who was in the WTC at the time
of the attack.
> Hello everyone,
> As you know, I had kind of a rough day yesterday. All Adaytum and
> D&T people who were on our call got out quickly and are all fine. Other
> than my swollen feet from walking all day, I am personally no worse for
> the wear.
> We got to the WTC at about 8:30 to prepare for our 9:00
> presentation...nothing out of the ordinary there. We were issued photo
> IDs at the security desk to gain access to the towers...I wondered whether
> I was supposed to save it or not for the next time I visited the WTC.
> John Sindel had gotten his laptop booted and the projector ready for the
> demo when out of the blue there was a large explosion and the building
> lurched to one side - my immediate thought were that it was either an
> earthquake, or another bomb in the basement. The building only swayed for
> a few seconds, as we were simply frozen waiting to see what was going to
> happen. The building stabilized, and we all quickly left the room and
> headed to the stairs. I made a point to go to the other side of the room
> to grab my laptop case and my suit jacket...I was sporting my spiffy new
> Italian suit that day, and sure as hell wasn't going to leave my jacket
> behind, or my laptop. Figured it would be days before any items left in
> the buildings would be returned.
> So, from the 63rd floor we joined the exodus out of the building.
> Everything was amazingly orderly...no one was hysterical or otherwise
> freaking out, although a few were trembling and crying a bit, but you
> can't blame them for that. Thing was, we all figured that what ever had
> happened was over, and we were safe, although inconvenienced by having to
> climb down all those stairs to leave the building. The thought didn't
> enter my mind that the actual structure of the building had been
> compromised...had anyone understood exactly how grave our situation was, I
> don't think we would have been quite as cool and collected as we were. On
> the way to the stairs, we could see debris (a LOT of debris) falling from
> above - we reasoned that it must have been a plan that hit the building
> above us, rather than anything that had occured below us. Immediately
> upon entering the stairwell, there was a distinct stench that no one could
> recognize, figuring it was just some kind of smoke. I knew immediately
> what it was, though, because I've smelled enough different fuels burning
> in my life to recognize that these had to be the fumes from the burning
> airplane fuel - which meant if nothing else, we were perhaps at risk of
> carbon monoxide poisoning. I didn't mention my analysis of the stench -
> figured there was nothing we could do about it, and didn't want to give
> everybody a reason to panic. People coming in from the floors were
> bringing wet paper towels with them, so eventually we all were trying to
> breathe through those, which helped a bit. Somewhere around the 40th
> floor there was a guy in a wheelchair, clearly unable to move on his own,
> in the stairwell with a couple people attending to him trying to figure
> out how to get him out of the building. A few floor later, a woman was
> being attended to for one reason or another - later, we saw an eyewitness
> report on TV from a guy who evidently had been in our stairwell too (he
> started on the 65th floor) - he related seeing the guy in the wheelchair,
> and a woman who was having a heart attack on the way down.
> Things progressed fairly smooothly until we got into the low 30s -
> then the descent slowed as we had reached the total maximum capacity of
> the stairs, and it was like stop-n-go traffic in Chicago the rest of the
> way down. On the 25th floor or so we were met by firefighters coming up
> the stairs. They were completely exhausted, not only from the climb but
> all the equipment they were carrying. The fire chief (said so on his hat)
> sat down on the stairs next to me, as I was standing on the platform at
> that floor, to wait for his men to break into the locked door to that
> floor. The firefighters wouldn't say much, other than confirming that it
> was a plane that hit the building, and that we simply needed to continue
> down. When the men had opened the door, the chief got up and collected
> his equipment, but dropped a pry bar on his way to the door. I picked up
> the pry bar and shouted "Chief!" to get his attention, but he was already
> gone - one of the other firefighters took the pry bar, and probably 20 of
> them entered that floor. I think they must have been planning to use the
> elevators to go up higher - I don't believe there was any damage to that
> floor.
> Somewhere around the 15th floor a water pipe must have burst in the
> building - the stairs became a waterfall, and women were being advised to
> put their shoes back on due to broken glass at the bottom. Eventually we
> made it to ground level...I will spare you a description of what I saw on
> the ground outside the building. It was like a scene out of a movie, or a
> war reel. I chose not to look at the scene for too long, and proceeded as
> directed by police to the basment level, which connected the towers to a
> mall on the other side of the street. The floor was covered in broken
> glass and debris, and a good 3 to 6 inches of water. We made our way to
> the mall, and back up and out the other side. Once outside the building
> we turned to view the damage to the tower...and were amazed. We had no
> idea the damage was that bad - and we also didn't know that the second
> tower had been hit. At first I reasoned that probably the whole plane
> didn't hit the first tower, and the wreckage probably continued to the
> second - it wasn't until someone on the street told us that there was a
> second plane. The police corraled us to about a block away, and from that
> point there were thousands of spectators gawking at the surreal view
> provided them. There were about 8 of us, including both Adaytum and D&T
> people, at that presentation...we had gotten seperated on the way down,
> and at this point I was accompanied by Graham Mew and Scott Wallace (D&T).
> We had no idea where the others were, such as John Sindel and Steve Peck,
> but we were confident that they had gotten out of the building.
> We lingered for a couple minutes, then decided to just get away from
> the scene and all the ruckus. We walked for several blocks in no
> particular direction but "away" before happening to run into another of
> our D&T compatriates (Bob). We stopped at a small bakery while the other
> guys stood in line to use the pay phone outside - cellphones were useless
> as all the circuits were used up. I bought a small coffee and a pastry of
> some kind and waited for them inside. I wasn't in any hurry to call
> anyone, since I didn't think any of my friends or family knew I was in NY
> anyway. In a short while, Bob and Graham and Scott had made thier calls,
> and Bob suggested that perhaps we should just head to another D&T office
> in the city, since we really had no where else to go. Bad thing was that
> the office was up near Broadway - about 50 blocks away, and it wasn't like
> we were going to be able to get a taxi.
> On the way out of the bakery, we turned to look at the towers and
> suddenly realized that something was terribly wrong...there was only 1
> tower. One of the towers had collapsed while we weren't watching, which
> shocked us all. None of us thought there was any threat of such a
> thing...I relalized that probably the jet fuel (we'd by then found out
> that they were fully fueled commercial airliners that hit) soaked thorugh
> the interior of the tower, and the heat from it's fire compromised the
> metal superstructure of the building. It was also while at the bakery
> that we were told the Pentagon had been hit as well, and that this was
> clearly an act of terrorism, rather than some aweful accident.
> We continued walking towards Broadway, occasionally pausing to
> listen to someone's car radio, as people congregated around them to hear
> the radio reports. A short while later, the people we were walking
> towards on the sidewalk gasped, and we turned to see the other tower
> crumble and fall. The resulting cloud of smoke was enormous...and that
> was all you could see from then on - there wasn't enough of the towers
> left to see at all.
> Eventually our tired and swollen feet made it to the D&T building,
> where we relaxed a bit and made some phone calls. We watched TV for a bit
> while pondering what to do - we all just wanted to get out of the city,
> but the roads and trains had all been shut down. After watching the news
> for a while, where we actually saw footage of the second plane hitting the
> second tower, we were advised that the trains had resumed service out of
> the city (but not it). So we took to the street once more and headed to
> Penn Station, where after a moderate wait we boarded a train on the
> Trenton line, which was the line that Graham had used to come into the
> city that day. His car was parked at the Metro Park station - but he had
> left his keys in the WTC. After conferring with his wife about possibly
> getting a second set of keys to that station, we instead decided to ride
> all the way to Trenton, where one of Graham's friends picked us up and
> took us to Graham's house, on the outskirts of the Philadelphia area. We
> arranged for hotel rooms, went to Target to buy a few essentials, and by
> the time I had gotten to my hotel room and showered, I was so tired that I
> simply couldn't keep awake even to eat, and was sound asleep by probably
> 8:30.
> So, here we are...Scott and I are probably going to get a car and
> drive home, or maybe Amtrak. Should be home in a day or two. I left my
> cell phone in Graham's car overnight to recharge (my wall-socket charger
> was left in my hotel room - in a hotel about 1 block from the WTC. I have
> no idea if that hotel even exists anymore), but will have it with me for
> the rest of the trip home. The number is ###-###-####. My total losses
> for the event are just what I had left in my hotel room (I was planning on
> staying the night there again yesterday) - just clothes and boots and
> assorted other stuff. A few of the rest of us lost our laptops, etc., but
> not a whole lot of that matters much. We got lucky, and that's all there
> is to it. Neither strength, nor skill, nor knowledge would have saved you
> had you been in the floors above where the planes hit. By the simple
> stroke of luck that we were 20 floors below the impact we we able to
> survive. I am grimly rather sure that no one who was above the impact
> zone made it out. But we did...with my precious little laptop...think
> maybe I'll have it bronzed or something.
>
>
> (name deleted)
>
>
>
