A Survivor’s Story

Sep 06 2011

Jan O’Dell signs autographs after a premiere of a movie in which she was featured; the movie told the story of several survivors of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center (photo courtesy of Ms. O’Dell).

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, OVS provided thousands of men, women and children with compensation and assistance that allowed them to begin to rebuild their lives.

Jan O’Dell is one of those survivors; she graciously agreed to share her story. Listen to Ms. O’Dell’s reflection.  Read other September 11 reflections and remembrances.

On 9/11 an unconscious older woman, gray-haired, bloody and ash-covered, was pulled from the layers of debris that covered the Hudson riverfront minutes after the collapse of the South tower of the World Trade Center.  I was that woman.  

I had been evacuating my nearby apartment building after the planes hit when I stopped, transfixed, staring as the gash in the side of the South tower.  It was ablaze and open to the sky. Then it was gone.  The whole section of the building disintegrated.  The top twenty floors hung for a moment then tilted and began to fall.  Wave upon wave of debris quickly roiled outward with a roar that took several moments to reach me.  I was a block away. Within thirty seconds, the last a blank to me, I was knocked unconscious.  The worst of my injuries was a skull fracture and bleeding on the brain.  It was seven weeks before I returned to my apartment with years of recovery ahead of me.  The American Red Cross, FEMA, Safe Horizon, the New York State Office of Victim Services and other disaster groups were there to help.

I had moved to New York on my retirement from a professional career four years earlier to see if I could get any work as an actor in theater and film, always a sideline for me.  I was surprised to find success, mostly at photographic modeling in the area of senior health care.

Unable to work the first three years after the disaster, I slowly became more active and in 2008 and was asked to be in a film focusing on how 9/11 changed the lives of ordinary New Yorkers. The cast members were to create and perform their own characters and stories.  Mine became of a survivor.  Based on my own experience, I wrote about the time when I gathered every thing in my apartment related to 9/11 and lighted candles in memory and honor of those who had died, their families and survivors. 

I also remembered my family and all those who had helped me survive including the disaster aid and victim service organizations.  The movie was dedicated to them and they were invited to attend a special showing before the New York premier where I was able to meet and thank them personally.

After the showing, a woman named Mary Haviland from the New York State Office of Victim Services (during 9/11 she worked for another victim service agency) introduced herself to me.  She grasped my hand with both hers and with a warm smile started thanking me.  I thought, “Wait a minute. I’m supposed to be thanking you,” but she went on telling me of how she was among many victim service staff people who had worked overtime for months to respond to the crisis.  Not only were they overwhelmed by the event personally but professionally, she said and it meant so much for the film to acknowledge that they were real people and not just some bureaucratic office worker. 

Immediately an image came to me of all the victim service professionals, hunkered down over their desks, dealing with phone calls and paperwork as day went into night for months on end. I hadn’t truly recognized that before. 

Now when I think of those who helped lift me from the ashes of 9/11, they are not nameless, they are Mary and her colleagues. And I think of those at their desks of the Office of Victim Services continuing, day in and day out, to help victims of crimes rebuild their lives.

In the decade since 9/11, OVS has provided nearly $58 million in compensation and assistance to World Trade Center victims’ families and survivors.

If you or someone you love has been the victim of a crime, OVS may be able to help.

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