“You, Lord, are the lamp that turns my darkness into light." ~ 2 Samuel 22:29
The PA announcement urged them to
evacuate the building as thick, black smoke rose from the top of their
building. Genelle, a Trinidadian
immigrant, remained surprisingly calm, as she and 14 coworkers descended a
stairwell clogged with firemen working their way up.
Eighty floors beneath the inferno raging above, Genelle
stopped briefly to remove her heels when an explosion knocked her off her feet. A deafening rumble followed. Then everything went dark.
The floor buckled.
Pieces of the walls and ceiling rained down. She’d made her way down to the 13th
floor before the entire building collapsed around her, shattering her leg and
injuring her head. Trapped among
pulverized steel and concrete, she couldn’t budge.
An hour passed, then several more. She drifted off, then woke sharply wondering
how long she could stay alive like this. Was help coming? What would her Mom do in this situation?
Her Mom would have prayed of course. But not as a last resort, but with confidence
in her Savior.
A faint ray of light told signaled a new dawn from somewhere
above the wreckage. She could no longer
feel her leg. Without food or water, she
wouldn’t be able to stay alive much longer.
“Lord, I might not get out of here without a miracle,” she whispered.
“But I’ve found You, and that’s the only
miracle that matters. Thy will be done!”
At that very instant, Genelle heard a noise. “Hello?” she shouted, in a voice so hoarse
from dust and dehydration that she didn’t recognize it.
“Is someone down there?” a voice called back.
Genelle stretched her hand toward the light as if reaching
for God. She felt a man’s hand grip hers. “Don’t worry,” the rescuer said. We’re going to get you out of there.”
He kept reassuring her as the rescue team methodically broke
through the wreckage. Genelle worried there
might be another collapse, but with each prayer, peace returned.
Eventually, after 27 excruciating hours, they were able to
extricate Genelle’s broken body from the enormous mound of fallen debris. She was placed on a stretcher that threaded
through the destruction, while a crowd of clearly joyous, but shocked, rescue
workers cheered enthusiastically.
Only 23 people survived the Towers’ rubble. Genelle Guzman-McMillan would be the last
person pulled out alive and the only one in her work group who survived the 911
terrorist attack.
