An Ordinary Person

Blog Post #104

Brian Clark, a self-described "ordinary person," became an inter-bank deposit broker with Euro Brokers in Toronto in 1973. A year later, when the company moved to the World Trade Center's South Tower (Building Two), Brian and his wife moved too. He was routinely in his office in the southwest corner of the 84th floor by 7:15 am.

The following excerpts, summarizing Brian’s story, show how his ordeal on 9/11 was exceptional, and divinely guided.

(Brian’s entire story: A 9/11 Survivor's Story)

"At 8:45 on September 11, 2001, there was this loud boom-boom. The lights above me buzzed, my head jerked.… 84 floors in the air, flames were swirling right against the window. Four seconds later.... out in the airspace, singed papers were floating.... strange phenomenon.

"Around 9:00, the public address system announced: "South Tower, Building Two is secure. There is no need to evacuate.... return to your offices. Repeat: Building Two is secure.' Within minutes, it happened again: this double boom-boom, and in an instant the West Side trading floor just completely fell apart. Everything came out of the ceiling: speakers, air conditioning ducts, lighting—the works—just rained down on us.

"Suddenly, the building started to sway and honestly, the next 10 seconds was the only 10 seconds of that day that I was afraid. It felt like it swayed six to eight feet to the West, stopped for 5 seconds before it came back to vertical with a very noticeable jerk as all that steel went back into square.

"A feeling just washed over me: 'Brian you're going to be all right.' I looked around the room filled with a quiet calm.

"Shining my light around (a fire marshal's flashlight I'd had in my pocket), I gathered up some people and led them through the chalky, gritty construction dust over the debris to the Center hallway.... proceeding with full intention of turning right to Stairway C.... but there was a strong push on my right shoulder that pushed me—there was nobody there—pushed me towards Stairway A and I went with it. Just very inexplicable at the moment.

"We only got down three floors to the 81st floor landing when we were met by a heavyset woman coming up the stairs who wouldn't let me by.... the debate began: Do we go up? Do we go down? The woman said, ‘There's flames and smoke down there’, trying to convince us all to go higher. In the midst of this 30 second debate, I heard a banging noise inside the 81st floor... and heard a muffled cry: 'Help, help! I'm buried. Is anyone there? I can't breathe!'“

As Brian instinctively made his way to help that stranger, he noticed the others were going back up, helping the woman and her companion.

"Ron was one of those people. Up top, as they were lying on the floor —thinking that better air was near the floor— Ron said he felt a voice telling him, 'Get up.' So, he got up. He knew he had to see his wife and children, so he went back down the stairs and got out of the building just before it collapsed.”

Continuing, Brian went towards the voice seeking help. "The 81st office area.... a bigger mess......stepping over all kinds of debris, desks, filing cabinets to get to this person.... totally dark, some sort of black stuff in the air, smoke, more construction dust but around me was this complete bubble of fresh air almost like a deep-sea diver's helmet was around me. I was breathing absolutely normally: fresh, clean air, no problem.”

That stranger, Stanley, and some co-workers had tried to leave the building earlier after seeing the flames on Tower 1, but a security guard told them they would just be in the way of everybody evacuating the North Tower. When Stanley got back to his office, he saw the second plane bank out over the harbor coming directly at him. He dove under his desk saying, "Lord, I'm in your hands." When Brian finally extricated Stanley from the debris, Stanley exclaimed: "Hallelujah, I've been saved. One thing I've got to know: Do you know Jesus Christ?"

Not the time for "a theological discussion,” they made their way down, encountering debris but no inferno flames. By the 74th floor "we finally broke into what I consider to be normal conditions.... lights were certainly on.... some fresher air was coming from down below.”

"When we got to the 68th floor, a co-worker of mine, Jose was walking up the stairs. Jose was carrying a walkie-talkie, he was on our Tech staff and I asked, 'Jose, where are you going? What are you doing?' Jose said, 'I can hear Dave up above on the walkie-talkie. He's helping people. I'm going up to help him.' Jose could see that Stanley, who was closer to where the plane hit, was in rough shape. When I said, I'm helping get Stanley out, Jose said, 'It's okay. I'll be fine.' Jose's my hero, you know. He went up just to help his friend help other people.

"On the 44th floor, a security guard who was staying with a severely injured person, said there was no phone service.... on the 31st floor, the floor my company used to occupy…. completely vacated.… I picked up the phone and got dial tone and called home.... this was 33 minutes after our building got hit.... Stanley left a message for his wife.... then I dialed 9-1-1 to tell them help was needed on 44.”

Brian's phone call to his house was welcome news. His wife told the people gathered there that Brian would be out of the building in two hours. The building collapsed 25 minutes later. (She knew that it took Brian two hours to exit the building from the 31st floor in 1993, when a bomb exploded in the basement of the North Tower. Then, everyone in the entire building had jammed the stairs trying to get out.)

"Stanley and I got down all the way to the plaza level.... looking outdoors into the open space between the two towers—normally a space filled with tourists, businesspeople, vendors with their brightly covered carts, flowers— and we're staring out at this gray space, like a desolate, abandoned archaeological site.

“I guess my mind was blocked from seeing any carnage. I'm grateful that I don't have any memory of seeing any of that.”

To be continued….

"In total our company lost 61 people of our 250 employees that day but about 50 of them were lost when the plane's right-wing tip went through the east side of our floor. It’s just by chance that I was standing on the west side because I had been looking up at what had happened to the North Tower.” —Brian Clark

Peace Affirming Prayer

Peace fills my mind and flows through all my thoughts.

Peace fills my heart and flows through all my love.

Peace fills my soul and goodwill flows to all.

Peace fills my being and permeates all my activities.

Peace within. Peace without. Peace everywhere.

Peace in my mind. Peace in my heart. Peace in my soul.

Peace in me. Peace in my home. Peace in my country. Peace in my world.

Peace everywhere.

Amen.

Ukrainian folklore characterizes pysanky as a symbolic, talismanic writing that invokes a higher Universal Power for help, while believing with faithful certainty that It will. The contemporary version of this characterization is a paper-and-pen journaling practice called prayer writing that develops a personal relationship with God.