In the article, “Rain of Fire”, Evan Thomas, assistant managing editor of Newsweek magazine, wrote about the story from Virginia Dichiara, victim of September 11th incident. In brilliant morning of September 11th, DiChiara, a self-discribed workaholic, somehow felt moseying; so she left home at 7:40am which was 40 minutes later than her usual morning routine. Inside On 78th floor of World Trade Center, DiChiara switched to the second elevator which leaded her 101th floor where her office is located.
At 8;46 am, when the elevator doors closed, Flight 11 plowed into the building. The impact of the plane crash made the elevator bounced up and down like a ball. DiChiara and her co-worker Bell crowched down to small opening space of the elevator door to escape from the fire. When she emerged from the narrow escape, she realized that her hair was burning. After tapping out the fire on her hair, DiChiara noticed her back was aflame.
She immediately dropped, rolled herself on the floor and did it again to make sure the flame was gone. Even though she got third-degree burned, the shock of being aflame made her feel numb for little while. Then DiChiara found a co- worker Ali. Ali’s reaction by seeing her told DiChiara how bad her burn was; and she started feel pain. Gently guided by Ali, DiChiara went through the dark smokey hallway toward a small security office where the light still works.
About dozen of people are anxiously sitting there; some of them are paralyzed, some of them tried to calm down and find out the way to get out of this situation. Suddenly a man who is a fire warden appeared and announced that there was a stairwell they can use. Everyone had to make decision either staying there until rescured or going downstairs by their own foot. Needed medical attention so badly, DiChiara decided to go down by own her foot. This story tells us what was going on inside World Trade Center the day.
