A walk on 9/11

It's hard to believe it's been a decade already, even when 9/11 was so central to your life. Like many people who were in New York that morning, I avoided visiting Ground Zero afterward. Too many innocent souls were lost there.

But a month before today's anniversary, I went back. And I took my eight-year-old son - to show him what happened to his mum, to his country, and to the world that day.

Dylan is among the millions of young Americans born since 9/11 who nevertheless live with its consequences - from the horror of troops dying in Afghanistan and Iraq to the comparatively small aggravation of taking off your shoes and belt before boarding a plane.

That famously bright, blue morning was only my third day in New York. I'd just arrived from Bangkok on a Standard Chartered Bank internship programme. I'd be there for three months. Everything was new and exciting to me.

I left my apartment on Broadway and walked toward 7 World Trade Centre.

Suddenly the cheer of the sunny morning vanished. People rushed past me in a panic. The sky was filled with bits of paper, like in a tickertape parade.

And then I saw the North Tower of the World Trade Centre on fire. I took frozen a second as the scene sank in, undecided what to do next. More people started running down the street and I thought I might get trampled if I tried to get to the office.

Instead, I rushed back to my apartment and phoned my mother, turning on the television news at the same time. But before I discovered what was happening, a tremendous explosion rocked my building. It felt like it was going to collapse.

I ran out, across the street, and was stunned at the sight in front of me. From that moment on, the rest of the day was a blur.

I had no idea where to go. My geographic knowledge of the city extended no further than my five-minute walk from home to the office.

So I stood there and watched events unfold.

I watched flames race from one floor of the WTC to the next. I stood there hoping for some sort of miracle. Stop the fire. Help those people. But of course there would be no such miracle that day.

I heard the roar of the South Tower collapsing, storey by storey. It seemed impossible. How could a 110-floor skyscraper come down just like that?

And then I ran for my life, pursued by a vast rush of air and flying debris. People screamed. There were shoes scattered along the sidewalks. My mind raced - am I going to be buried alive here, are these my final moments?

Above all, I thought, how did I come to be here in New York at such an apocalyptic moment?

After running three blocks I turned around for another look. The cloud of dust and debris had caught up to me. I was rapidly engulfed. It was hard to breathe. I felt ready to pass out. I ran inside the nearest open door.

I could hear the North Tower collapse. Anthony, a Good Samaritan, tried to calm me down, realising I was a total stranger to the city. He reassured me, saying he'd walk with me as far as I needed him to get me to safety.

I remembered David Feingold, who I'd met two days earlier. He was an anthropologist and filmmaker who lived in uptown Manhattan.

Finding my own way there without buses or taxis would have been out of the question. Anthony walked with me for three hours until we found a subway station still in operation. He gave me his train pass and waved goodbye.

He was my angel that day. In the most fearful moment of my life, he appeared to guide my way.

Around 4pm I got to David's place. The journey had seemed like an eternity, but now I had a place to stay.

At 5.30, as if all that had happened that morning hadn't been enough, the TV news reported that 7 World Trade Centre had collapsed. That's where the Standard Chartered Bank offices were - my destination that day.

I never cried on 9/11, nor for many days that followed. And then there was a morning when I just couldn't get out of bed. I was too scared to leave home. I shook uncontrollably at the sound of every passing police and ambulance siren.

But I refused to leave New York. I stayed to help my co-workers rebuild.

About two years later I moved to Boston, where two of the airliners used in the 9/11 attacks had begun their flights. I thought again about that morning and wondered if that terrible event had changed me?

To some extent it did, of course. Most of all, though, it made sure that every day I cherish being able to see my family. That simple privilege was stolen forever from nearly 3,000 people in New York who weren't as lucky as I was.

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 Rattana Promrak is a former The Nation reporter, and now a contributor of a Thai-Boston magazine.
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