Frank Ufert World Trade Center Survivor

 

The photo above depicts the hard hat given to my late father, Frank Ufert, by his final employer, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), of the U.S. Department of Labor, following the 9-11 Tragedy. All of us in the United States and throughout the globe have personal recollections of that world-changing day. However, only a few of us, and by "few," I mean tens of thousands out of billions of humans on Earth, lost someone or were, or knew, a survivor to whom we were related or were and are connected first-hand. My dad was one of those survivors.

On September 11, 2001, my father had worked for OSHA for nearly 10 years; this followed a two-plus-decade career as a professional photographer, and then, after closing his business, returning to his earlier trade as a journeyman carpenter and construction contractor. He was a compliance officer for most of his time at OSHA -- winning awards for his service (my dad is pictured in the center of the photo above) -- and a union shop steward who was later promoted to a safety educator.

As an OSHA compliance officer, my dad -- who worked in 6 World Trade Center, the small building adjacent to (immediately underneath) the North Tower (now the site of One World Trade Center) -- was a first-responder to the February 1993 World Trade Center bombing--wherein, lest we forget, a truck bomb was detonated in the garage below the North Tower. Many who focus on the awful events of 9/11/2001 forget that there was another attempt to destroy the WTC almost a decade prior.

On 9-11-2001, I remember walking to my place of work -- which was only 4 blocks north of my home in the Chelsea section of Manhattan -- early that morning, with the skies bright, blue, and beautiful, and the air warm but crisp—the perfect day. As I strolled north, I saw and heard countless fire engines, ambulances, and other emergency vehicles racing south on 7th Avenue. Being a leather-skinned New Yorker, I didn't even consider looking at where they were going. I ran into a colleague; we headed into the office, sunny and happy, and then we both learned moments later of the events that were unfolding.

 

As soon as I realized it was occurring, I immediately called my mom, knowing my dad was in the WTC, and without even thinking about the fact that phone lines could be jammed -- she and my father also lived in Chelsea, probably on the same telecommunications trunking line as my office -- I reached her with no trouble. She was home after having taken my dad to work. In 1999, my father suffered a diabetes-related heart attack and had triple-bypass surgery. The following year, he suffered a paralyzing stroke; this, just months after recovering from his heart surgery -- which left him feeling healthier than he had in decades -- and receiving his promotion from OSHA. He used a wheelchair for the rest of his life. (My dad passed away in July 2009.) For a variety of reasons, he returned to work again, even after suffering the stroke—given special dispensation to be the only part-time employee of the Northeast Region for his division of the USDL. He would go to the office very early in the morning to leave earlier in the day. My dad was 67 on 9/11/2001. My tiny mother, who was six years older than him, would heroically wheel my father to his office every day when he reported for work. As always, on that morning, my mom took my dad to 6 World Trade Center at around 5:30 or 6 am. She was considering staying in the WTC area to wait for the Borders Bookstore to open so she could sit down, relax, and have a cup of tea. Why not? It was a beautiful day. However, something compelled her to head back to her apartment instead. And she did, hours before the unthinkable happened.

When I called my mom at home, she hadn't even seen the television coverage. I said, "Turn it on now." She sat, stunned -- like all of us -- at what she was watching. Again, I said to her on the phone, not thinking about the implications of inaccessible phone lines, "Let me call Dad and see if he's still in his office." I hung up, called my father, and, again, miraculously, I reached his voicemail. I ran out of my office and downstairs with some of my colleagues to 6th Avenue (called the "Avenue of the Americas"), where, on 27th Street and 6th, because of the angle of the city, we could see those giant Twin Towers as though they were directly in the middle of the Street--albeit that they were approximately 2 miles away. It was then that we saw the actual devastation first-hand. It was surreal as if we were watching a movie, yet real at the same time. When I was on the Street, only the North Tower was hit--remember that Tower One was burning for almost 20 minutes before the second plane hit the South Tower. We stood, stared, gasped, then turned behind us to see the largest building in the vicinity, the iconic Empire State Building, which was less than 10 blocks away (less than 1/2 mile) from us, and we were nearly paralyzed with fear as to what may have happened if "this was more than just an accident"... we knew it was not an accident.

I ran back and told my bosses that I had to be with my mother because my dad was at the WTC and we had not yet heard from him. I called my mom, astonishingly reached her again, and told her I was running to her/their apartment. When I arrived, she told me — having continued watching TV news — that a second plane hit the South Tower. Just before this, I was trying, in the heat of the moment, to put together a plan with one of my bosses to contact two of our company's employees (system engineers) who were heading to the Trade Center for technology training. Fortunately, as I was racing out of the office to be with my mom, we heard that both engineers were okay. One of them couldn't get downtown because of the situation with the subways; the other  -- a moment of levity here -- didn't make it on time because he was chronically late for just about everything, and he was, as expected, late to the training session (thank G-d!).

 When I arrived at my mother and father's apartment, I found my mom dazed but not in a panic. Why? While I was en route, my mother received a phone call from the wife of one of my dad's colleagues telling her that my father was out of the building -- the photo above shows the destruction on 9 11 to the office building where my dad worked, 6 World Trade Center -- and safe. Wait... she received a PHONE CALL? Yes. Remarkably. My mom heard from the wife of this colleague via a cell phone call -- almost all mobile phone lines were jammed entirely -- from New Jersey after she (my father's colleague's wife) heard from her husband via another cell phone from the city, that my dad and some of his colleagues were alright. It turned out that they were pushing my dad's wheelchair up West Street out of the dust, smoke, rubble, and sheer devastation.

The story of my father's rescue is astonishing and chronicled in several articles. See:

• From the St. Petersburg Times, September 12, 2001 (Reprinted on September 10, 2005 in the Tampa Bay Times): "Shaken survivors tell tales of luck and bravery"
• OSHA publication (Fall 2001): "An OSHA Office Evacuates" (PDF)

All we knew was that several hours later -- after they stopped to eat something! (my father was diabetic and needed food, or he would have gone into diabetic shock) -- my mother and I heard the door unlock, and there before us were my dad and his colleagues. They pushed my father healthily into our door in his wheelchair, and we were eternally grateful. The resolve and bravery of my dad's colleagues on that day can never be repaid.

My father worked for the Federal Government in his later life but never lost his zeal for his left-wing politics. On 9/11/2011, ten years after the tragedy, I know that my dad would honor the memory of those who were lost and their families, of the heroism of his own colleagues in the Feds, of the police and firefighters that responded and continued to respond, and were also lost then (or later) as a result, to the union members who were affected, and all of humanity who suffered and continue to suffer. But he, a survivor, saw people above him jumping from the top floors of the building when they knew that their only choice was to do so or burn to death, which gave him memories from first-hand, right-there experiences that haunted him and gave him nightmares for the rest of his life, would also not condone the "jingoism" that has served as "patriotism" when reflecting. In my survivor father's honor -- who was also a U.S. Army veteran (Korean War) -- and in his memory since his fortunately not directly 9-11-related, but still untimely, passing, I want us to reflect on loss, overall, for everyone involved, directly or indirectly. Reflect on injustice, but not the "obvious" injustice. The loss occurred in more ways than can be calculated.