Trapped twice in the rubble
By David Handschuh Posted Sat, Dec 1 2001
It is history that newspaper readers will wrap in plastic bags or put in boxes in their attics alongside headlines of “Man Walks on Moon” or “Kennedy Assassinated.” It is a day that generations will recall by where and with whom they were. Surely, it was a day that I will never forget and one that forever changed my outlook on life.
I remember waking up that morning and thinking what a beautiful day it was. It was the first day of a graduate level photojournalism class I was scheduled to teach at New York University.
I was fiddling with the radio and the scanner and tucking receipts and papers under rubber bands while sitting in rush hour traffic. Then I actually looked up. There was a massive column of smoke coming from lower Manhattan.
The voices from Manhattan Fire on the police scanner were screaming to send every piece of apparatus available to the World Trade Center. My first thought was some knucklehead pilot had accidentally flown his Cessna or Piper into the building.
As Fire Department Rescue One rushed southbound in the northbound lane, I swerved across the traffic island on West Side Highway and followed them, on their bumper. It wasn't the first time I had followed the big red truck as they raced, with sirens blaring and lights flashing, to an emergency.
Their rear door was open and I could see the firefighters as they strapped on air packs and pulled tools from compartments, preparing for battle with the flames and smoke.
We raced down West Side Highway at breakneck speed into oncoming traffic. Several firefighters waved to me out the back door. They recognized me as a friendly face that had covered their valiant heroics for more than 20 years.
Less than two hours later, all 11 firefighters on Rescue 1 would be dead.
I arrived at the World Trade Center at 8:53 a.m. I remember looking at the clock and praying that many would be spared, hoping that a few people were delayed by voting on primary day or just by taking a few extra minutes to enjoy the crisp, clear morning.
I don't think anyone standing in the street or arriving soon after had a clue that the beautiful autumn morning would soon turn into a field trip to hell.
There was massive destruction looming 90 floors up, but it was eerie and quiet on the street, like someone had turned off the volume on the city or hit the mute button.
People were coming to work with coffee and breakfast, just standing and watching. You could hear the flames crackling, glass breaking, and debris falling.
I had no inkling of danger, no crystal ball as to what would happen. I just thought I was recording the largest challenge that paramedics, firefighters and police officers of New York City would ever face.
At this point, we felt sure that we were observing a horrible accident. A single aircraft had hit the tower. No one could predict a second jet slamming into the South tower.
Internationally admired experts and commanders with years of experience in structural firefighting and collapse had no clue that both towers would soon be pancaking down.
And I had no idea that, for only an hour and ten minutes, I would be covering one of the biggest stories in the history of the modern world.
As I turned my camera lens on the flaming tower, I realized that not all the debris falling to the street was glass and metal. I can't begin to describe the picture as some chose to jump to their deaths rather than be burned alive. Many photographers recorded images that morning worse than any nightmare we can have.
West Street was littered with debris¾office papers, broken glass and body parts. These are sights that I never want to see and photographs I will never show anyone again. I walked south to the corner of Liberty Street, looking to take pictures of people exiting the towers. There were few, yet the smoke and flames continued to spread and grow.
People were fleeing the Marriott hotel, carrying their high heels so they could run faster and covering their heads with serving trays as they fled. Others were helping others avoid the blizzard.
New York's financial district started to resemble scenes in Europe during World War II. Cars and vans were burning. Long shiny limos had three-foot long pieces of airplane parts through their hoods.
And then came this noise, a loud high-pitched roar that seemed to come from everywhere but nowhere. The second tower had exploded. In just seconds, it became amazingly obvious that what originally had appeared to be accidental was really an overt act of intentional hostility.
I didn't see the second plane although I was looking at the tower at the time it hit. I have no recollection of taking the picture—a photograph taken milliseconds after the plane hit the south tower—that appeared on page two of the Daily News the next day.
Viewed from street level looking up at the World Trade Center, the photograph is framed by an achingly beautiful blue sky as an ominous black cloud of smoke billows out of the north tower. A brilliant orange fireball spews glass and melting steel to the ground.
If the desire to flee in life-threatening situations is strong, the desire to stay and document is often stronger. It's not a feeling of being invincible. It's just a need to keep recording the truth.
Time stood still as I documented the horror. But soon after, another loud terrifying noise shook the ground. I looked up as the south tower began to crumble and disintegrate in slow motion.
By instinct I grabbed my camera and brought it up to my eye, but in the back of my mind I heard a voice that said, “run, run, run.” I've been doing this for more than two decades and I've never run from anything.
Listening to that voice that morning saved my life.
I managed to get about 40 or 50 feet, I guess, and had just rounded the corner of Liberty Street when I was picked up by a tornado of night, of darkness, like getting hit in the back by a wave at the beach. Instead of salt water, this wave was made of hot gravel and glass, cement and metal. All of a sudden I was flying, with no control over my feet, my legs or my direction.
The noise was overwhelming. There was cracking and creaking and things flying. The debris and the choking cloud kept coming. The locomotive-like noise was followed by silence. I don't think I lost consciousness, despite being picked up and thrown almost a full city block, landing underneath a vehicle and trapped by debris.
I know I was under a vehicle because I lifted my head and hit either a bumper or gas tank. I couldn't breathe but eventually cleared my nose and mouth of debris.
I thought I was going to die, scared and alone, face down in the gutter of a lower Manhattan Street. I reached for my cell phone to call home and tell everyone that I loved them, but it was gone. My pager was gone. My glasses were gone. But somehow I had held onto my cameras.
I started calling for help and was soon answered by words that I will never forget. “Don't worry brother. We'll get you out.” Firefighters call each other brother, and the moment I heard those words, I knew that I would be OK. The men and women who I had photographed saving lives in New York City for two decades were there to save my life, this time.
My guardian angels, as I later found out, were Lt. Tom McGoff and firefighters from Engine 217 and Ladder 131. They dug me out of my tomb and went off in search of others more severely injured. I later learned that two firefighters from Engine 217 lost their life that day, most likely after saving mine.
Another team of firefighters, led by Phil McArdle, carried me a block to a delicatessen. Shortly after leaving me on the floor of what they believed to be a safe location, the second tower collapsed, causing the façade of the deli to collapse. We were trapped again.
There were 15 grown men inside, holding onto each other, some calm but others screaming with the desire to live. And there was my co-worker, fellow Daily News photographer Todd Maisel, who ran after me, first to take a picture of rescue workers saving someone, and then, in shock, realizing that the victim was me.
I don't know how long it was until the dust cloud subsided. Three rescuers, EMS Paramedic Chief Charlie Wells, a police officer and a firefighter carried me to an NYPD Harbor boat.
I was strapped onto a backboard, placed on the front of a boat with an injured police lieutenant, a firefighter and a few walking wounded. We headed across the Hudson River toward Ellis Island. It was an amazing boat ride. Beautiful blue sky, bright sun shining on my face. I closed my eyes and envisioned a piña colada in my hands as I cruised the Caribbean.
Hitting a wave, shocks of pain brought me back to reality. We were in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, with the writing that declares “Give me your tired, your poor. Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
And as I squinted to see without my glasses, I saw the smoke rising from the World Trade Center destruction—a symbol of New York, a symbol of the United States, a symbol of the American economic system was in ruins.
We've all been affected by the tragic attack of September 11, whether we were at Ground Zero or not. On September 10, I viewed the world with a glass half empty perspective.
On September 12, I realized that my glass was overflowing.
I owe my life many times over to rescue workers—some I knew before that day, some I've been talking with, crying and instant messaging all day long.
There are still others I have not yet had the chance to meet and thank.
Many journalists suffered physical injuries and mental scars that day. It's easy to identify the physical injuries. A first year med student could have diagnosed my shattered leg. Unfortunately, it's much more difficult to assess the wounding of the mind and soul that journalists suffer when we routinely cover stressful and traumatic situations.
My fellow photographers are suffering in ways we cannot fathom. One stopped while driving in rush-hour traffic on a New York City bridge, unable to move, as an airliner came in on a routine final approach to La Guardia airport.
Another experiences bioterrorism nightmares and is haunted by images of flesh dripping from human bodies. Still another photojournalist showers three and four times a day, scrubbing to remove a scent that is not lodged in the nose but deep within the soul.
These are the casualties of war and violence we don't talk about much and rarely consider, especially among those who are hurting the most.
Firefighters, Paramedics and Police Officers who survived the September 11 terrorist attacks—but witnessed unbearable carnage and human anguish—have undergone Critical Incident Stress Debriefing and are involved in peer counseling sessions.
We must assist journalists, another breed of foot soldier that served and suffered. There are tears in the press corps, too, and we have to wonder, who will help us heal?
Of all the men and women who charged into danger September 11, I can't stop thinking about the reporters and photographers, editors, page designers, sound people and other journalists who were exposed to horrors covering this sad page in American history.
Three years ago, the National Press Photographers Association conducted the first-ever survey of visual journalists. Ninety-five percent had covered a fatal or serious car wreck within a week of filling out the survey.
We found it was not unusual for visual journalists to suffer negative effects from the cumulative exposure of repeatedly documenting the news.
Out of the charts and scientific lingo of the survey, NPPA initiated our first peer counseling training program for journalists in conjunction with the Dart Center at the University of Washington and Newscoverage Unlimited, a not-for-profit organization established in 1999.
We recently conducted a three-day program in Manhattan that trained 10 news people how to assist distressed colleagues. We're now setting up a New York office and a nationwide support network to deal with the problems that will undoubtedly affect journalists around the world for a long time as a result of the World Trade Center attacks.
We plan on conducting similar sessions in Washington, D.C. this January, Atlantic City, NJ in March and Minneapolis in June of 2002. We're looking for a location and date for West Coast sessions and additional funding to support this important endeavor.
We will heal as individuals, as families and friends, as a community and a nation. We will be changed in ways that we never imagined. We will be stronger and more tolerant.
Just looking out the window at the blue sky makes me happy. I am so glad to be here. I hope that others will join me in appreciating the simple things in life.
A clear lesson was learned that day. Thousands discovered that life could be gone all too quickly. Live today as if it's your last. Enjoy every moment that you have. Hug everyone that you love.