Grateful Hearts - 9/11 survivors redefine their lives

The drive from New York City to Jean and Dan Potter’s house only takes about two hours, but it feels like a journey to a more peaceful world when life was still all right.

Small winding country roads through the picturesque forests of the Pocono Mountains, a state park along the border of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, lead to their home. The house is located in a 4,500 acre private gated community, all visitors must be announced in order to get in. It is a pristine oasis where deer and wild turkey can be spotted in the backyards.

This is where Jean and Dan relocated to after the horror of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Jean was an Executive Assistant in Bank of America, and her office, on the 81st floor of the North Tower, was just a few floors under where the plane ripped through the building. Dan was a New York firefighter and a first responder at the scene. He rushed to the site, fearing the worst. All he could think of was finding his wife. They had gotten married just two years earlier.

“My heart was jumping out of my chest,” Dan remembered. Ten years after the attacks he is still haunted by the images of that day. “I’m running by torsos and body parts on the street that were probably ejected through the South Tower. And I could see Police officers starting to cover some of the larger body parts.”

In the meantime, Jean was trying to make her way down the 81 flights of stairs. When the plane crashed into the tower, the whole building shook. Jet fuel began to run down the elevator shafts and ignited immediately. Thick smoke filled the air, heat built up quickly, water was running from the ceilings. Hardly anyone above her floor survived.

As she was running down the stairs she started to see firemen coming up. “That was very reassuring,” Jean said. “And I saw one of the firemen my husband knew, Vinny Giammona. I said: Vinny, be safe! And Vinny, who would have been 40 that day never made it out. He left behind a wife and four daughters.” Jean and Dan described the events in an almost breathless manner, as if they were reliving every minute. Even now, ten years later, the tone of their voices conveys how chilling and traumatic Sept. 11, 2001 was for them.

Jean’s knees were shaky as she ran away from the towers, not knowing that Dan was rushing to the site trying to rescue her. Jean was just a block away and quickly dug into a subway station when the North Tower collapsed. “I hear this rumbling and I just remember, looking at the ground and I thought: maybe this is my time. Maybe I am going to die. You think, you’re out of the building and you’re safe and it happens all over again.”

Dan and a fellow firefighter found refuge under a huge steel beam. “I remember, holding on to my helmet, everything was coming down and we got hit with rocks and blocks and all this debris. I could feel my hair standing up the back of my neck and it got louder, and louder and louder.”

Dan was desperate. After the dust settled, he rushed to the apartment in Battery Park City he and his wife lived in at the time, just a few blocks away from the World Trade Center site. It was his last shimmer of hope, but Jean was not there. “I had an emotional breakdown, I just collapsed in the hall and cried,” Dan said, looking down, pausing.

Later that day, Jean and Dan were reunited at the Chinatown fire station. Jean had went there following the advice of her husband: always to go to the nearest firehouse in case of an emergency. Both are convinced that God gave them another chance that day, that he gave them another birthday.

And that new life would be very different from the one they were used to. Their apartment, just a stone’s throw from Ground Zero, was uninhabitable, they had lost numerous friends and colleagues, Jean quit her job, Dan retired after an over 20-year career as a firefighter. Being a fireman had been his childhood dream. Jean now works as a counselor at a women’s jail because she wants to explain to people in need that every day is a gift. She also reminds them how fragile life is.

Both openly talk about how they have suffered from post-traumatic stress. To recover, they say, they had to relocate and start the healing process. Jean also wrote a book titled “By the Grace of God,” which documents the couple’s ordeal. It is a survivor’s story dedicated to all who perished on Sept. 11 ten years ago. A sign by the front door of their country home reads: Grateful Hearts.

Courtesy: Xinhua