To an extent, we are all survivors. One study asserted that 17 percent of the entire United States population outside New York reported symptoms like nightmares, sleeplessness, and anxiety in the days after September 11. Still, the more intense the exposure, the greater its effect. So for every non–New Yorker who suffered, almost three New Yorkers reported symptoms. And the closer that New Yorker was to the Trade Center, the more he felt it. You could measure the difference in blocks. People below Canal Street reported symptoms at almost three times the rate of those below 110th Street. If this is true, then the most intense experience of survival was had by sixteen who experienced almost incomprehensible luck that day. These people—a bookkeeper, an office temp, an engineer, a Port Authority cop, and twelve firemen—survived despite having the World Trade Center collapse on top of them.
For them, surviving has proved to be a complicated task. As one survivor’s wife explains, “Everyone else feels like 9/11 was a long time ago. I still feel like we are stuck on September 12, not really able to move beyond it.” And, as she inevitably reminds herself, they are the lucky ones.