Five years ago, as darkness fell and fires burned at the World Trade Center site, I reported live on CNN about the heroic people I was watching trying to rescue any survivors who might be buried under the rubble.
As it turned out, I was standing very close to where one woman, who is now my friend, was buried alive with her head stuck between two concrete pillars and her right leg crushed. Her name is Genelle Guzman McMillan, and 27 hours after the North Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed on top of her, she was rescued.
Genelle, who was working for the Port Authority at the time, wound up being operated on four times over the course of a six week hospital stay. I was with her in the hospital during the days after 9/11, doing a story about how she survived. Twenty survivors were pulled out of the rubble of the stricken buildings; Genelle was the 20th.
Now, five years later, I just finished spending the day with Genelle, updating her inspirational story. Doctors thought they would have to amputate her leg; but they saved it. They thought she would not be able to walk without a cane; although she has a slight limp, she no longer has the cane. They weren't sure if she'd be able to work full time; she's now back at her old employer working out of an office at JFK airport.
Genelle was engaged to be married when the towers fell. Her fiance was sure she was dead. Today, they are married and have had two children since she was rescued.
I often think about Genelle being buried under the rubble while I was reporting from Ground Zero. But more often than that, I think of the other people who undoubtedly were still alive under that rubble and were never found. Five years later, that still haunts me.
