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I really don’t know how to write this post; everything that I have written within the past hour has been deleted and rewritten, so please excuse my jumbled thoughts and bear with me.

Every New Yorker has their own 9/11 story, here is mine.

5 years ago I worked in a hospital, in an outpatient clinic. I was just about to leave for a morning meeting when one of my co-workers started screaming for me, calling me back and into the conference room. She was eating her breakfast in there and was watching television. We both saw the second plane hit the tower, and looked at each other in shock. We just stared at the television thinking it was something out of the movie Independence Day. It was totally surreal. About an half hour later, we were called by the hospital Chief of Staff and told that the hospital was on lockdown and that all management personnel were needed in the Emergency Room to assist with triage. NYC buses were transporting firefighters, police officers and EMS workers from our ER downtown, and bringing back people that had minor injuries. The most vivid memory I have of that day is that all of the people coming into the ER from the site seemed grey and were covered with soot and debris. Towards the end of the day, the National Guard had set up camp on the hospital grounds and were Medevac-ing severely injured (mostly burned) people from the WTC site.

At this point, I was unable to get in touch with my parents or siblings to let them know that I was ok, just unable to leave the hospital. I tried to get in touch with my cousin and my roommate who both worked close to the towers, my cousin at 120 Broadway, my roommate at One Liberty Plaza. I didn’t find out about either of them until 2 days later, both fine, they found each other and walked uptown together.

I was able to leave the hospital at about 11pm, and while traveling home, I couldn’t help but notice how quiet the streets were. Eerily quiet. No cars on the road, hardly any traffic. No hustle and bustle. Just silence.

It was weeks later before I found out definitively of two friends that died, both of whom worked at the WTC. JFQ and PC. You are always missed.

Victims of 9/11