Surviving 9-11: 'I felt terrorism."

Winner of Metroland Media Editorial Award for best feature story.  
By Erika Engel
Published in the Collingwood Connection


That day was like the end of the world, and Brian Clark was caught in the apocalypse.
Clark, a Canadian, was at work on the 84th floor of the south tower of the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001, and he made it home that day.

To hear him tell his tale is a heart wrenching, edge-of-your-seat, hand wringing, shivers-down-your spine experience.

Clark was in Collingwood on Thursday, September 20 at a meeting of the Probus Club of Blue Mountain to share his incredible story of near misses and a miraculous escape as one of the few survivors who were above the impact zone for the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

The Day of Infamy - as it was called in The Globe and Mail - claimed 61 employees of Euro Brokers, the international firm for which Brian Clark worked. Nobody above the impact zone of the North Tower survived; four people who were above the impact zone in the South Tower survived. Clark was among them, and he rescued Stanley Praimnath.

Clark was an executive for Euro Brokers working at the New York branch, which occupied the entire 84th floor of the south tower - an identical replica of the North Tower; both having 107 stories each and occupying a space 208 feet by 208 feet square.

He commuted to work from Hoboken, New Jersey - it was a 70-minute journey one way. He arrived to work at 7:25 a.m. on September 11, 2001. The south tower collapsed at 9:59 a.m., four minutes after Brian Clark and Stanley Praimnath ran from the tower's exit dodging falling debris to safety at Trinity Church.

Clark's day was typical until 8:46 a.m. when a plane crashed into the North Tower's 93rd floor. He heard a double bang, and the lights in the Euro Brokers office flickered. Clark saw swirling flames sweep across his office window, and watched singed papers float through the air, slowly making their way to the ground.

His first thought was that a welder had hit a pipe on a floor above, and there was a fire. He was one of several fire safety wardens for his office, so he grabbed his vest, whistle and flashlight. Clark advised his colleagues to head for the centre core and await further instruction.

Brokers walked to the north wall of the tower, and, for the first time, saw the north tower's upper floors engulfed in a ring of fire.

"As I walked to the windows, I heard people were jumping," said Clark in his presentation to the Probus Club of Blue Mountain.

"I called my wife ... I said, 'we're okay, something's happened at the north tower.'"

A voice over the main speakers explained the south tower was secure, and there was no need to evacuate, although 200 from Euro Brokers left along with hundreds more from other floors who joined the mass exodus. They would never again return to work at the World Trade Centre.

Minutes later, the second plane slammed into the 78th, 79th, 80th and 81st floor of the south tower.
At 9:03 a.m., Clark heard another double bang, this time it was louder.

"In those 10 seconds, I did know terrorism," said Clark. "The room fell apart. Things fell out of the ceiling; a chalky dust filled the air. The wall tore apart, and the door collapsed. For five seconds the building swayed toward the Hudson River."

But those seconds of paralyzing fear came to an end for Clark right there, and he knew a peace beyond understanding.

"A strange, almost spiritual feeling washed over me," he said. "I heard, 'Brian, you'll be okay.'"
He took his flashlight from his pocket and led the way to the hallway, with a small group of survivors from his office.

There were three stairwells running from the bottom to the top of the building. Though Clark was intending to take a staircase on the right of the hallway, he felt a "push" to turn left. The push didn't come from anyone in the group, but it made Clark take Stairwell A. There are no stories of people getting down stairwells B and C, anyone who might have tried came upon impassable paths and died in the collapse or the fires.

Digging through rubble and climbing over obstacles, the small group made it as far as the 81st floor before coming upon other people, a woman and a man, who were heading up the same stairwell.
The woman stood in their way, yelling that the way down was not safe and they all had to head to the roof.

In the ruckus, Clark heard a small voice calling for help.

"Help, help. Is anyone there?" called the voice. "I can't breathe."

Clark couldn't move on, the voice compelled him - he pushed through a doorframe and into the offices of the 81st floor. A coworker, Don DiFrancesco, followed him to help search for the source of the voice.

"I have a distinct and sad memory of my coworkers and that lady ascending the stairs. They all died," said Clark.

He dug deeper into the collapsed office looking for the voice, all the while feeling as though a "bubble of fresh air" surrounded him. He was breathing normally on the floor in flames.
Almost immediately, DiFrancesco was overcome with smoke, and had to leave the collapsed office - the site where the second plane hit.

He too ascended the stairs, but eventually turned back. He would become the last person to make it out of the South Tower before it collapsed and killed everyone who was left. At the exit, he was hit with a fireball and thrown across Church Street. He suffered severe burns and broken vertebrae. He returned to work for Euro Brokers six months later.

Clark finally found Stanley Praimnath - the source of the desperate voice calling for help, in impact zone on the 81st floor.

Praimnath was stuck behind a chunk of the false ceiling that had fallen. He was the only person from the impact zone who survived. He watched from his desk as the plane, aimed directly at his window, approached. He hid under his desk for the collision, and miraculously his desk was intact. The wing of the plane lay broken and blocking his office door.

Praimnath escaped thanks to Clark's help, but both suffered puncture wounds on their palms. They shook hands, declaring they would be "blood" brothers for life. The two continued the descent in Stairwell A.

They passed flames, but none that had consumed the stairwell. An inch of water cascaded down the concrete steps with them, evidence of broken pipes.

By the 74th floor, conditions in the stairwell were almost normal. At 68, they passed Clark's coworker José Marrero carrying a walkie-talkie. He said he was on his way upstairs to help the other survivors.
He died in the collapse.

At the 44th floor Clark and Praimnath discovered a security guard standing over a man with head and spinal injuries. The guard insisted he would stay until a paramedic could come, and asked the two men to call for help when they could.

At 31 they stopped again to call 9-1-1 for the guard and the man they found on 44. They also called their wives. It was 9:35 a.m.

The tower collapsed at 9:59 a.m.

The rest of their descent took another 20 minutes. Finally at the exit, Clark and Praimnath passed firefighters entering the building with their gear. Their advice to the two men was to "go for it," and not to look up.

They did just that, running and jumping over fallen debris, dodging the debris falling from the top of the tower.

When they finally turned to look at the tower they had just escaped from, they watched it sway and collapse.

Trinity church protected them from the resulting wave of ash and dust, and they ducked into the lobby of 42 Broadway.

The two were separated on their treks home, but not before exchanging cards. They have been fast-friends since that Day of Infamy.

Through a series of perfectly (near miraculously) timed arrivals and departures, Clark made it home to Hoboken at 1:15 p.m. that day.

In the weeks that followed, Clark had a dream in which José Marrero appeared.

The message he absorbed was one of peace, and it reinforced his own faith.

"With the fullness of time, you'll all be fine," he said. "I've concluded there are thousands of unanswerable questions. But they're unanswerable. I've let them go."

He attended 61 funerals for his colleagues lost that day. It was months of memorials.

"Beyond the sadness I carry from that day, I live in the present," he said. "Everyday is a great day."
He carries no thoughts of revenge, instead he quietly honours the fallen with a bracelet bearing the name of José Marrero.

He travels and tells his story often, and he is grateful for the peace he knows, because it allows him to share the story without breaking down.

He does it, he says, because he is asked to do it.

"It's a small price to pay for being alive," he said. "It's an assumed obligation."

He was named head of a relief fund established by Euro Brokers for the families of 9-11 victims.
He holds no thoughts of revenge in his heart, and he was disappointed by the celebration and bragging that came along with the death of Osama Bin Laden.

There's no anger anymore, but he carries sadness from the memories of that day.

"There's sadness because of the senselessness of that day," he said. "There were 2,800 people killed - 2,200 in the north tower and 600 in the south."

He knows countless stories of death at the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001. One of his colleagues re-entered the building to help firefighters find survivors. On his way back out, he was struck and killed by a falling metal beam.

"Was he a hero? Was he a victim? He was just a great guy who got caught. That's the senselessness of it," said Clark. "The world changed."

Clark and his wife, Dianne, have lived in the same house in Mahwah, New Jersey for 38 years. He retired six years ago.