00:00I was at the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner from 1999 until 2020. I was
00:08promoted to senior supervisor in 2000. I had analysts who were assigned to me and I was
00:14responsible for getting them trained to be analysts. At that time we were mostly doing
00:20homicide cases, sexual assault cases, assault cases. I was on the train in New York City.
00:26We were getting ready to cross over into Manhattan at 125th Street and I heard the announcement
00:34on the radio and all it said was plane crash, World Trade Center, something along those lines.
00:42I was given an assignment to be a supervisor of staff who would be processing samples.
00:52I don't think we really knew what was going on or anything like that outside. It was just
00:57like there was going to be, there were going to be people who were deceased. They were going
01:02to need to be autopsied. It should have been fairly straightforward if DNA testing was going
01:10to be necessary. After the buildings fell, it became a whole other thing because first of
01:19all you're not going to get intact bodies any longer and we didn't. These new people, they were supposed
01:27to be stationed at each of the autopsy tables to assist the medical examiner with choosing a good sample
01:36to test for DNA. I gathered them together and I said, all right, we're all going to get dressed,
01:42we're going to gown up, we're going to go downstairs and we're going to take a look and see. And
01:49in essence,
01:51you need to tell me if this is something you can do.
02:15She had just started a brand new, a new job at Marsh End McLennan. She was the executive assistant
02:24department for their new president of their new e-commerce division.
02:36Nobody got out above the 91st floor. 450 mile an hour airplane jetliner hit her office directly.
02:45They never knew it was coming and none of them in her office area ever knew it even happened.
02:52I kissed her goodbye at 8.06 that morning. Never heard from her again. And all I can say is
03:00thank
03:00God I didn't hear from her again because that way I know that it, she never knew it happened.
03:12That is her grave, okay? The burning towers were the world's tallest funeral pyre. We cremate,
03:21bodies. Okay? But it's just in this, you don't know. You don't know. Most people do not know.
03:30How did their loved one suffer? Did they not suffer? Was it instant? They don't know anything about that.
03:36And even those who do get remains, at least they have something.
03:43It is a really wonderful representation of the events. And as part of the museum, the remains that
03:52are not identified are interred there. And I find it to be very beautiful. Knowing that even if they
04:00they can't be identified that they have a resting place that is respectful, I hope families have seen
04:07it and believe it to be. But I thought it was very well done. It's fitting in the absence of
04:14being able to
04:15identify all of them. It's been 25 years. And there are people who were born when that happened. And
04:24there are people who don't know the effort that went into the recovery, the days after the attack,
04:33watching the buildings collapse. I saw the second tower collapse from our office building. I mean,
04:41that whole time was really surreal. In the early days after 9-11, and all the families were looking
04:49for their loved ones. And you had all of these pictures with their, you know, missing outside of
04:56the buildings. But yet, New York was moving and doing what it needed to do. During that time, I remember
05:04feeling fierce pride in who we were, who we are, what we represented. I'm so grateful that I just had
05:16the opportunity to do such important work.
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