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#376 | Saturday, December 8th, 2001
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My best friend and roommate, Kris Orr, were getting ready to go to different movie sets to be extras, I was due at Drew Carey and he was due at a funeral scene location.
I had arisen at 5:00 to check my email and didn't have the T.V. on...when it got to be time to wake Kris up, I disconnected my modem and the phone rang right away...it was Kim, Kris' sister.
"Are you watching it?"
"Watching what," I asked.
"Two planes crashed into the World Trade Center and one went into the Pentagon."
"Oh my God," I thought, but it was a prayer too....and I turned on the T.V. Then I woke Kris up. He talked to Kim, but I don't remember what he said. I was too stuned.
We watched the images as they played, everyone saw that. Someone from Central called each of us some time later to tell us that the shoots had been cancelled, but who would have wanted to go anyways?
The building collapsed on the rescuers. People passed on the film from their videocameras. I was in the smoke and dust as a tower fell, while I ran, being carried by a woman, into an Italian restaurant and my life was saved. I was a police chaplin that was hit by a falling person carried by four of my friends. I was a black woman choked by dust, a doctor that was running to perform triage.
Sometime around noon, it got to be too much for me and I had to go in and take a nap...I was in information overload.
And I became more survivors and children of people that didn't make it and my empathy antennae were burned and dusty and I cry when I remember it and I'm crying now writing about it and it's December 8, 2001.
I have done volunteer hands on work for People with Aids when their was no medicine. I have sat in hospital and hospice with them as they passed. I thought death and I were brothers, the kind that acknowledge our bond but aren't all that glad to see each other.
I didn't know death. I may not know it now, but I know its smell and its feel.
I only saw it on t.v. I work in the industry that turns words into pictures, into entertainment...
But that day touched me as if I were there. I pray for the ones that were.
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Dave | 46 | California
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#377 | Saturday, December 8th, 2001
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I was sitting in my living room having my morning coffee, when I decided to flip through the television channels. All of a sudden I saw the first crash...
I was covered with a wave of chills and utter disbelief. I ran into my roommate’s room and woke him up. I was screaming and shouting come here, come here!! I can't believe it; we've been attacked! Then the second plane hit and we both turned to each other "What the hell?" Who would do such a cold and heartless thing to innocent men and women whose only crime (that day) was going to their jobs? The remainder of the day we both sat in total silence and disbelief as the horror unveiled.
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Luke | 39 | Arizona
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#378 | Saturday, December 8th, 2001
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I was off that day, Monday is my day off. I woke up, took a shower then went out to get breakfast. When I got back home I decided to watch CNN to get the morning news. The first image I saw was a close up with the two towers in flames and my first thought was "that looks just like the World Trade Center". After a couple of minutes of listening to whoever was on CNN that morning I called my job to tell them to stay away from downtown Manhattan then I called my boss, who was on his way to work, to tell him to turn around and go home and that's when the first tower collapsed, all I could say for the next few minutes was “Oh my God, oh my God” over and over again. Then the second tower came down and my mind went numb…
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Vincent | 34 | New York
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#379 | Saturday, December 8th, 2001
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Well, I was sitting at my computer in Heidelberg, Germany, when suddenly I got an ICQ message from a friend in Munich (Germany, too) telling me to turn on the TV. I then spent the next two hours glued to the TV watching the news and pictures rolling in. I got my other flatmates in, too, because I was the only one with satellite-tv and with that CNN and NBC. I had to leave for driving lessons for about 2 hours but when I returned they were still sitting there glaring at the TV saying nothing and switching between CNN, NBC and several German channels which were all showing pictures and reports. Germanys main TV Channels (ARD, ZDF) never stopped reporting for days. Nobody said a thing - we just sat there, 'gobsmacked' as we would say in Britain. Later on we started to phone family and friends.
I must say I was deeply moved whilst watching the pictures. I was watching live when the plane hit the second tower and the first and later the second tower collapsed. Over and over again I had showers of goosepimples rolling down my body. The worst of all was having to watch the people jumping out of the towers - I never ever want to see those pictures again, they make me feel sick because those people must have known that they had three choices: die slowly in the flames - die by slowly being crushed - die by jumping. What a nightmare!
In Heidelberg the sun was shining and it seemed to be a beautiful day. There we were - in romantic Heidelberg with it's castle glowing in the evening sun and thousands of people who stayed at home, glued to the TV. Heidelberg that evening was a quiet town mourning for what had happened thousands of kilometres away but had touched us all deeply.
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Kay | 29 | Germany
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#380 | Saturday, December 8th, 2001
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I was 17,at the time it was a month and 6 days before my birthday.
I remember waking up a few times while in bed and glancing at the tv which I always mute while asleep...and I kinda saw the images of the towers but I just figured it was some other country...cause we're america right? Noone would ever hurt us.
All my beliefs and egotism were shattered a few minutes later when my mom called and informed me of what had happened. It took some time to sink in. Then I freaked. Because my fiance lives in NY somewhere and I couldnt remember exactly where.
I spent the rest of the day online clinging to information any information I could get. I didnt sleep for a week. and when I did sleep it was from passing out. I worried about the relief workers. I worried for my Islamic friends who went through alot of stuff the news has never even covered.
The most memorable thing of that day was I live by an airport..so about every hour there's guaranteed to be at least one airplane going buy...but for the longest time it was deadly silent in our skys. And when they did return..It was even creepier.
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Cassandra | 18 | United States
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