Angel in the Rubble: The Miraculous Rescue of 9/11's Last Survivor

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Members of the Air National Guard's 109th Airlift Wing out of Scotia, and Syracuse's 174th Fighter Wing immediately responded to New York City, setting up camp at places such as Fort Hamilton. Mostly civil engineers, firefighters and military police, they greatly aided in the clean-up effort. F-16s from the 174th Fighter Wing also ramped up their flying sorties and patrolled the skies. New World Trade Center to open after years of delays". USA Today. June 10, 2018. Archived from the original on June 12, 2018 . Retrieved June 11, 2018. Murphy, Dean E. (September 12, 2001). "A Day of Terror: The Hopes; Survivors Are Found In the Rubble". The New York Times. The whole way down, Genelle Guzman-McMillan held hands with her friend Rosa. “Rosa and I counted each floor as we passed — 47, 46, 40, 35. I thought we might be out of danger. My feet ached,” she said. Many accounts assert the mystery man was a firefighter, one of the countless brave souls who deliberately risked their lives to help others. Because this is a rumor of man triumphing over mayhem, lore remakes one of the cherished but doomed heroes of the day into a survivor, changing his real fate into one that not only spares his life, but leaves him triumphant in the face of utter devastation. Our sense of justice is thus appeased.

But as they made their way down the stairwell, the North Tower collapsed around them. In a split second, she was separated from the group and crushed under the rubble. He got in that wheelchair and went from being Lovable Ray to being a gladiator,” said John Feal, a retired construction worker and friend of Pfeifer’s who helped organize the lobbying effort. “That wheelchair made him the face of the movement.” On Sept. 12, New York firefighter Raymond Pfeifer, covered in dust and soot, scoured the ruins of the World Trade Center in a desperate search for 11 men from his fire station who had been inside the South Tower when it collapsed. One name on the list carried a special emotional weight: It belonged to a 38-year-old father of two who had traded shifts with Pfeifer and was working in his place on 9/11. Pfeifer eventually spent months digging through the rubble, exposing himself to toxic chemicals.Roger and Genelle now have two teenage daughters, Kaydi and Kellie. Genelle still works for the Port Authority—she’s the office supervisor at LaGuardia Airport. She also volun­teers for the Red Cross. “They gave me so much support during my recovery. I saw how caring they were. I want to help others the way they helped me.” Chen, David W. (September 4, 2002). "With 9/11 Flag, a Mystery Unfurls". New York Times. Archived from the original on January 6, 2014 . Retrieved August 4, 2010. She called her boyfriend, Roger, who told her to get out of there, but by then, the elevators had shut down, and they’d just been instructed to remain on their floor.

Aldrich, TK; Gustave, Hall (2010). "Lung function in rescue workers at the World Trade Center after 7 years". New England Journal of Medicine. 362 (14): 1263–1272. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa0910087. PMC 4940972. PMID 20375403.The Awlaki case was never brought to trial. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2014, in a complex ruling that concluded, in essence, that U.S. military and intelligence officials could not be sued for carrying out duties that were part of a congressionally authorized, White House-approved global war against a dangerous terrorist group. Throughout his 20-year military career, Ronie Huddleston guided scores of young Army recruits — his “boys” — on the path to becoming professional warfighters. He never expected that his own stepson would be among them — a second generation from the same household deployed to the Middle East. I found myself missing my mom from a place deep inside. She would have known how to comfort me. What would she have done? Prayed. Mom would have prayed, not as a last resort but as the first. Closing my eyes, i focused hard on my prayer. Lord, I know you are there. I haven’t always trusted you. I blamed you. Now I am asking you to help me. That’s what Mom would have prayed for. Other changes followed. The days when she skipped wearing her head covering came more frequently. One day she put it away, for good. She saw nothing wrong with head coverings, but for her it never felt like a choice. Huddleston was incredulous at first, and a bit worried. Later, as the news settled in, he just felt angry.

There is — and there is even a true tale of actual miraculous survival — but there are also confusion, misinformation, and exaggeration. Guzman already had achieved minor celebrity status as the “last survivor,” and her story and photograph appeared in newspapers and TV shows across New York and around the world. Within a year, she had received U.S. citizenship and an elaborate wedding ceremony sponsored by a bridal magazine and aired on television. Although inexperienced as a speaker, she began to talk at churches and conferences about her spiritual journey. Often, her testimony included the story of “Paul,” the man who had called her name and held her hand in the rubble. After her release from the hospital, she had tried for weeks to find Paul so she could thank him. She asked visiting city officials and firefighters who he was. No one seemed to know. But minutes later, when the building shook once more with the impact of the second plane in the South Tower just 200 feet away, Guzman-McMillan said her “heart dropped.” And despite the Port Authority’s directions to stay put, the group decided to take the stairs, likely saving Guzman-McMillan’s life. Police [ edit ] Temporary NYPD headquarters at the Burger King at 106 Liberty Street, near the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The little ray of light faded. It was getting dark. Lord, be near me. Stay by my side. I talked to God the way Mom talked to him, as if he were right there with me and knew what it was like to be alone and afraid and hurting. Fi­nally I slept. The return of that faint ray of light told me it was morning. All feeling in my right leg was gone by then. Without food or water, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay alive much longer.

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Yet, after his departure, she felt strangely relieved. It was almost exhilarating. Soon it occurred to Fazazi that she was free to leave the house, and to go wherever she wanted. And so for a solid month, she went everywhere. Guzman McMillan remained buried beneath the building’s ruins for 27 hours, People reported, before rescuers found her. Her 12-year-old daughter Kimberly was her motivation to live. So, Guzman Mcmilan kept praying and asking God to show her “a miracle.”“And then I was giving up. And I said, ‘Oh God, I can’t take this no more’ when I heard someone call out to me, I feel like he said, ‘I got you. My name is Paul,’” Guzman McMillan recalled. “He hold onto my hand. And I hold on his hands. Talking to me, telling me, ‘I’m going to be fine. I’m not going to let you go.’” My friend Rosa and others I knew had died in the collapse. I could have died too, but I was rescued, thanks to Paul. I wanted to thank him personally. When a news crew came to interview me about my ordeal, they reunited me with some members of the rescue crew who had pulled me out from the rubble. Paul wasn’t there, and I asked why he hadn’t come along with them. As she had done many times, Guzman used her free hand to claw at the loose rubble in the gaps between the concrete slabs above her. This time, some of debris gave away, and she could see a faint gray light. She dug some more, and soon found that the hole was big enough that she could squeeze her hand through it. a b c Hamill, Denis (September 16, 2001). "Rescue Workers Keep Up Quest for Signs of Life Ruin All Over, But Not One Unkind Word". Daily News (New York).

For Fazazi, life as single mom was a struggle at first. She had no job experience and a limited social network. Yet eventually she was able to find work, helping with Arabic translation at a German nonprofit that dealt with refugees. “It was the first job I had in my whole life,” she said. Dad, I’m not going to go to college,” he said, according to Huddleston’s memory of the conversation. The stepfather began to object, but then stopped himself and decided to just listen. They would talk about how they might have expected torture and abuse from the Saddam Hussein regime, or one of the warlords, but they hadn’t expected it from Americans,” she said. “I heard that over and over. It really stood out for me.” Afterward, the lawyers faced the difficult task of explaining to Ahmad and their other clients the complex legal rules that caused their case to fail, even though the facts were never credibly disputed.I decided to take off the veil,” she wrote. “I am starting a new job. I have to support my children. I don’t think I can do this job with the veil on, and I don’t want to wear it.” If you’re a student of American history, you don’t wear rose-tinted glasses,” she said. “I knew the United States had not been perfect. But this was so different.” Almost immediately, the building crumbled in on her and the others, pinning and trapping her immediately, in what would be the longest wait of her entire life: 27 hours of waiting for a rescue, or what she best terms a miracle. Miss Guzman-McMillan, 40, was an office assistant on the 64th floor of the North Tower. She was the last survivor to be pulled from rubble of the World Trade Centre, and was pictured soon afterwards in her hospital bed. She has published a book about her experience and gives talks in churches. She lives with her husband, Roger, their three daughters and Roger’s son. | Telegraph.co.uk A 110-story skyscraper made of concrete, glass and steel had collapsed on top of Genelle Guzman, yet she had come out of it with relatively minor injuries. Her survival was impossible. It strained belief. From the moment she was pulled from the rubble and into the sunlight on Sept. 12, Guzman had concluded that her salvation was simply, and literally, miraculous. And that belief served as a kind of guidestone for how she would live out the balance of her life.