Running late saves life of Aucklander

By SCOTT INGLIS

Melissa Jenner was supposed to have been on one of the World Trade Center's uppermost floors when the first plane slammed into the building.

But the Auckland woman was running late for work - good fortune that saved her life.

Miss Jenner, a 32-year-old marketing executive who works on the World Trade Center's 105th floor, was walking up to the first floor when the airliner struck.

She fled for her life, thinking a bomb had gone off. As she ran, she looked back to see the fireball from the second plane.

About that time some of her workmates, trapped in darkness on the very top floors, were bracing themselves for death.

"They were sitting in the corner and it was completely black and there was no way out and they rang their families to say goodbye," Miss Jenner said.

"People were calling out to tell people to help them. People were jumping out ... oh, God."

Miss Jenner is vice-president of a technology training company, part of Cantor Fitzgerald Securities which occupied some of the top floors of tower one.

She has been working in New York since February, after moving from London.

Miss Jenner was supposed to have been at work for a meeting at 8 am (New York time) but worked late the previous night and slept in.

She rang her boss and rescheduled the meeting for 9 am, although most of their marketing colleagues are thought to have arrived on time.

Miss Jenner said she took the subway into the World Trade Center and was making her way to the shopping concourse on the bottom floor when the plane hit.

"Everyone just started running towards us ... screaming 'bomb'.

"We got forced back on to the platform and out of a side door.

"I got outside and looked up and realised the top of the building had gone, was on fire. There was debris everywhere and paper and glass. I just took my shoes off and ran."

Miss Jenner ran 20 blocks, past people who seemed too stunned to move. She believes many of them would have died when the building collapsed.

She eventually stopped at a payphone in Chinatown and rang her mother to say she was safe, and then caught a cab home.

"It didn't actually hit me until I walked into my house and saw the messages on my phone

"Some of my friends thought I was dead. That's when it hit me, when I realised being late to the office saved my life."

She may return home to Manurewa, where her parents live.

"Suddenly the building I work in and the people I work with are gone ... It's just the most awful thing you can ever imagine being involved in."

Otago computer programmer Richard Dann told the Herald he was in the building's basement train station when the first plane struck.

"I could hear a commotion but I just assumed it was a bomb threat," said Mr Dann, who moved to New York 18 months ago.

"When I got towards the exit, I saw the rubble and flames coming out of the tower."

As he hurried towards his office he heard the second impact.

Horrified, he watched people leap to their deaths out of the building.

Later, Mr Dann realised how lucky he had been.

"Any earlier and I may have been hit by the first blast, and any later and I would probably be stuck on the train, which sits underneath the WTC."

Another New Zealander, Russell Barnes, wandered shocked through the streets of New York and ended up joining the rescue effort.

After helping build makeshift stretchers from plywood, Mr Barnes jumped on a truck rumbling towards the bomb zone to collect the wounded.

"Everyone banded together - cyclists in lycra, suited bankers, no matter what," said Mr Barnes. "We rolled towards the smoke [before] the trucks were told to turn back and wait - the building had just collapsed."

Full coverage: Terror in America

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Emergency telephone numbers for friends and family of victims

These numbers are valid for calls from within New Zealand, but may be overloaded at the moment.

United Airlines: 0168 1800 932 8555

American Airlines: 0168 1800 245 0999

NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade: 0800 872 111

US Embassy in Wellington (recorded info): 04 472 2068

Online database for friends and family