A Manchester-born artist who survived the 9/11 terror attacks on the Twin Towers 25 years ago has told how she feels a part of her was 'left behind' on the day. Vanessa Lawrence was taking part in an artists' residency on the 91st floor of the North Tower at the World Trade Centre in New York when the attack happened on September 11, 2001.
She managed to escape from the tower, describing how her survival was down to decisions about timing. The artist, who now lives in Ayrshire, told BBC Scotland's Breakfast programme: "I was on the 91st floor of the North Tower, so it hit two floors above me, and I know that our floor was the last floor that anyone made it out alive."
Escape was all about timing
"So you know, when I look back on that day, it was all about timing. I mean, I'd gone down for a drink, I came back up, and it was at the point that I went to exit the elevator back on the 91st floor that there was just suddenly a big blast, and the building shook and smoking debris blasted out in the corridor, and I was just thrown out of the elevator, myself and the other person that was in the elevator with me."
"So there's the timing of that, you know – everything at the point that made the decision to start making my way down the stairwell and things like that, for me it was all about timing."
"At the point that I came out the building, I remember sort of silence and slow motion, but it was obviously very loud and somebody made me look up and that was the big dust cloud coming down, so that was the South Tower collapsing, which I got caught under."
Caught under the dust cloud
"Luckily I was not hit by anything, but it was a struggle at that point because you couldn't breathe with the dust. You couldn't see anything. So that was a point in time. I don't really know how long it was and you couldn't really imagine how long that time was when you're there because you literally couldn't breathe."
Friday marks the 25th anniversary of the day when passenger jets hijacked by al Qaida terrorists struck the twin towers – causing both to collapse – and the Pentagon outside Washington DC. A fourth plane seized by extremists crashed into a field in rural Pennsylvania after the crew and passengers fought back. In total 2,977 people – 67 of them British – were killed.
Artwork reflects her experience
Ms Lawrence, who grew up in Cheshire, was taking part in the Studioscape Residency Program run by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council at the time of the attacks.
She said she has used her work as a way of dealing with what happened that day, including making a sculpture inspired by the flip flop that she lost as she escaped from the building. She called the artwork Left Behind as a reflection of what she feels happened to her.
The artist said: "There's the Left Behind for the actual physical flip flop that was left behind, but it was also about leaving behind a part of me. The me before knowing what it was like to experience something like that and to experience trauma and the effects of trauma. So definitely, there's a part of you left behind."
She said that going through an experience like 9/11 is "not something you get over" and that she was living in "fight or flight" mode for many years.
She said: "It's not something you get over. You learn to live with and deal with, and you find ways of working with yourself and learning to understand yourself and the way that you are, you know, acknowledging and noticing the way that you're living your life, and hopefully you can kind of work through that. That's been something I've been doing more recently, and it's taken all this time."
