Suntimes.com

'Please, God, make it quick'

October 3, 2001

BY JIM FITZGERALD

NEW YORK--A young securities broker who was enveloped in a fireball on the 83rd floor of the World Trade Center said Tuesday that he remembers thinking, ''Please, God, just make it quick.''

Despite burns covering a third of his body, from his ankles to his face, and pain so severe he wouldn't let his co-workers touch him, Manu Dhingra, 27, survived his hellish experience in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. On Tuesday he became the first victim released from the New York Weill Cornell Burn Center.

Wearing a Yankee cap and a New York Firefighters Foundation shirt--plus wraps on his arms and heavy lotion on his face and hands--Dhingra said he could not explain ''why I have a second chance'' when thousands of others did not.

''I just can't let it go to waste,'' he vowed at a news conference at the hospital. ''Life can't be normal.''

Dhingra, who was born in India, said he had just emerged from the elevator in the World Trade Center's north tower for a day of trading at Andover Brokerage--with its ''most beautiful view of the city''--when ''I was just covered in a ball of fire.''

''I thought it was over,'' he said. ''I thought it was a bomb.''

Then he realized that he was alive and that ''there's nobody going to come up to the 83rd floor,'' so he began walking down despite the searing pain.

Two co-workers helped him, clearing the way as they descended the numbing flights of stairs and occasionally fetching water for his rapidly dehydrating body. But ''my friends couldn't touch me,'' he said.

Their greatest help, he said, was in deceiving him about the trip down. Once when he wanted to rest, they told him to keep going because there were just 10 floors left. He found out later they were on the 61st floor.

''I owe a lot to them for lying to me,'' Dhingra said.

Somehow, he completed the march down and was bundled into an ambulance. He did not know the twin towers had collapsed until he was safely in the hospital, he said.

Dhingra, who is single, said he would return Tuesday to his Manhattan apartment. He is still on pain medication and faces a long regimen of physical therapy to keep his hands and arms from stiffening, he said.

There are 14 Trade Center victims still at the burn unit, ''most of them worse than me,'' Dhingra said. ''I get inspiration from them.''

He said he wasn't sure when--or if--he would return to work. But he said he was rallied by the spirit of unity in New York.

''I want to be part of it,'' he said.

Meanwhile, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said Tuesday the families of the more than 5,000 victims of the World Trade Center attack will each receive a wooden urn with dirt from the mass graveyard.

The mayor said the city settled on the idea after hearing reports that con men were peddling phony mementos from ground zero to family members. ''We are going to give the families soil from the World Trade Center,'' he said. ''We will provide every single family with an urn, made of beautiful wood.''

Also Tuesday, a court declared 41 of the missing victims legally dead, acting at the request of their families. All had worked for the Cantor Fitzgerald bond-trading firm, which lost some 700 employees.

Once the health commissioner receives the court's report, he will issue the death certificates. The process of obtaining a death certificate for a missing person has been speeded up from a few years to a few days to help victims' families.

Officials have acknowledged that it could take months to recover and identify victims of the fiery disaster and that some of the dead may never be found. Giuliani said 1,202 families whose loved ones are still missing in the smoking ruins have applied for death certificates.

One of the major employers near the site, Merrill Lynch, plans to return to its offices at the World Financial Center on Oct. 22--another sign of the city's return to normalcy, the mayor said.

Earlier Tuesday, after nearly a week of bickering, the state and the city struck a deal to jointly oversee the distribution of the more than $600 million in contributions collected for victims and their families.

Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and Giuliani's administration had been at odds over which operation was best situated to oversee the fair distribution of donations and prevent fraud and double-dipping.

But the two ironed out their problems. ''There isn't any turf war,'' Giuliani said.

As the city-state discussions unfolded, the bodies of 15 firefighters were recovered from the 1.2 million tons of rubble, law enforcement sources said on condition of anonymity. Nearly 350 firefighters are believed to be among the victims.

The confirmed number of dead now stands at 363, including the bodies of 64 firefighters.

New York City easily sold $1 billion in bonds to meet cleanup needs and relief costs Tuesday. Officials said the bonds sold out in two hours and investors placed $4 billion worth of orders.

And an assortment of celebrities--including native New Yorker Robert De Niro, TV host Regis Philbin and actress Sigourney Weaver--joined Gov. George Pataki in encouraging tourists to come back to New York.

''It's going to be rebuilt, bigger and stronger than ever,'' said De Niro, whose restaurant sits several blocks from ground zero. ''It's going to be a monument to all the people who died there.''

-- Anonymous, October 03, 2001