At 8.46am on September 11, 2001, an impression like an earthquake rocked the south tower of the World Commerce Heart (WTC) in Manhattan.
Within the Merrill Lynch financial institution’s convention room on the 96th ground, partitions shook and home windows rattled. The lights flickered on and off.
Tania Head, 26, a supervisor on the financial institution’s fast-track scheme, was chairing a gathering when she heard shrieks from the hall. She and her colleagues regarded up.
By the home windows, they noticed black smoke billowing from the constructing reverse — the WTC’s north tower. They watched a ball of flame rolling up from about 5 flooring under them.
Folks started to scream, to clutch at one another in panic or make for the doorways. They grabbed their telephones and commenced calling mates and relations, begging them to modify on the TV information.
A speck tumbled from a north tower window, after which one other. At first, Tania took them for items of furnishings, chairs or desks, flung from the burning constructing.
Then she noticed one was a human determine, its arms flapping, making an attempt desperately to fly because it plunged to the sidewalk 100 storeys under.
All that Tania may assume was: ‘The person I like, greater than something on this planet, is in that constructing.’
Of all of the 9/11 survivors’ tales, none appeared extra astonishing than Tania Head’s (pictured: actual title Alicia Esteve Head), however some survivors puzzled about parts of Tania’s story
As she hurried in direction of the exit, she tried to work out whether or not it was his workplace that she had seen consumed in flames.
Her fiancé — ‘Massive Dave’, as he was identified to everybody — was a guide on the monetary providers firm, Deloitte.
He labored on the a hundredth ground, and he or she had met him in February 1999, quickly after she arrived in New York from Barcelona, Spain, the place she had grown up.
Now they have been residing collectively on the Higher East Aspect with a golden retriever pet known as Elvis and plans for an October marriage ceremony.
Pushing down the hall, jostled by dozens of individuals additionally heading for the exit, Tania prayed that Dave’s workplace was above the location of the bomb, or fuel blast, or no matter had brought on the explosion.
Safety males shouted at them to return to their places of work and keep calm. Nobody was listening.
The raise would not cease on the 96th ground, so Tania used the steps to go for the open ‘sky foyer’ on the 78th.
Obese, she was panting closely as she reached the doorways of the ‘specific’ elevator that may take her all the way down to Ground 44 and one other raise. Her assistant, Christine, was following her.
The cabin of the raise was already overcrowded. She noticed there was no hope of getting in rapidly, and that swirling panic was making the state of affairs extra harmful for everybody.
A person in a swimsuit and tie shoved previous her, shouting, ‘This is not the Titanic, women, and it isn’t ladies and kids first!’
Others behaved extra calmly, urging queues to type. In moments, the road for the elevators snaked all the best way around the foyer.
Tania reached for her BlackBerry cell and tried to name Dave. After they parted that morning, they’d been bickering — an insignificant row, however virtually the primary of their relationship.
It was so silly: he needed to get his mom a token current for her birthday and Tania thought they should take her to dinner. Now, irrationally, it appeared vital to inform him it did not matter what they did, that no matter made him joyful could be proper.
Of all of the 9/11 survivors’ tales, none appeared extra astonishing than Tania Head’s horrifying story.
Within the years following the atrocity — which marks its twentieth anniversary subsequent month — Tania grew to become one of the crucial seen figures within the motion representing those that had lived by way of the catastrophe.
Finally, she grew to become president of the World Commerce Heart Survivors’ Community.
Almost 3,000 folks died within the assaults that day, and throughout America they have been considered martyrs. The survivors appeared to have much less cachet: Tania labored exhausting to counter this, showing continuously within the media.
Tania claimed she was chairing a gathering in Merrill Lynch financial institution’s convention room on the 96th ground of the south tower of the WTC (pictured) at 8.46am on September 11, 2001
By 2005, she was main excursions on the WTC guests’ centre and, on one event, confirmed New York mayors Michael Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani across the website.
A movie and ebook have been even ready that featured her story — although not for the explanations she may need hoped.
As a result of because the years glided by, cautious observers noticed unusual inconsistencies in her unforgettable testimony. Finally, they got here to understand, one thing did not add up and Tania’s story resulted in ignominy and shame.
On that fateful day, as she waited for the elevators, Tania knew she would by no means marry Dave if she did not get out of that constructing.
She was specializing in her respiratory, making an attempt to recollect yoga strategies, when a girl on the far finish of the sky foyer began screaming: ‘One other airplane!’
Tania noticed the wing of the United Airways Flight 175 Boeing jet slice like a knife into the constructing simply above her. Glass and particles stuffed the air like confetti. Within the blink of an eye fixed, her assistant Christine was decapitated at her aspect.
Because the partitions imploded, Tania was hurled again right into a marble slab. Her final thought was, ‘I hope I die rapidly. Do not let it harm.’
She regained consciousness in a hell of twisted metallic and flames. A person with a purple bandana tied over his face was beating her with a jacket.
She screamed at him to cease, and realised in the identical breath he was placing out the fireplace burning her mangled arm.
The person helped her to her ft. With a type of indifferent horror, she noticed her arm was half-ripped from her torso, hanging on by sinews. Along with her different hand, she supported it, utilizing her pocket as a makeshift sling.
Clinging to the person within the purple bandana, Tania struggled by way of the rubble. A person crawled out of the smoke, holding out a hand in direction of her. ‘Take this,’ he mentioned, and dropped one thing scorching into her hand.
It was a marriage ring. ‘Please give this to my spouse,’ he gasped.
‘I will discover her and I will give it to her,’ she promised. One other choking cloud of mud smothered them. When she may see once more, the person was gone.
Tania’s rescuer instructed her that one of many stairwells was nonetheless intact. As they neared the exit, extra folks stumbled previous them, badly burned and preventing for breath.
On the prime of the steps, a wave of panic hit her. ‘I am scared!’ she sobbed.
‘You are able to do this,’ he mentioned, then went again in to the carnage.
She struggled down greater than 50 flights of stairs till, exhausted and weak from blood loss, she handed out once more. This time, the determine standing over her when she was revived was a firefighter.
‘We’re leaving right here collectively,’ he instructed her, and carried her down the final 20 flooring.
As they emerged into the open, the streets choked with poisonous mud and ash, the bottom shook. A cataclysmic shrieking of concrete and metallic tore the air.
Folks have been operating in all instructions, shouting that the tower was falling. Her rescuer thrust her into the arms of one other firefighter, who flung her beneath a fireplace truck and shielded her together with his physique because the skyscraper crashed round them.
Gasping for air within the searing black mud, Tania felt the fireman press his oxygen masks to her face. She gulped air like water. His physique was pressed in opposition to hers. They have been buried alive.
After that, she remembered nothing, till she awakened in hospital, swathed in white gauze, with a tube in her mouth. Her first thought was for Dave. She begged nurses to inform her the place he was. Nobody would say.
It was not till her mother and father reached her bedside from Spain that Tania learnt the appalling actuality. Her fiancé was lifeless. She was a widow earlier than she had ever married.
Tania’s arm was reattached, however she didn’t go away hospital till Thanksgiving, in November.
She devoted months of analysis to discovering the id of the person who entrusted his marriage ceremony ring to her. Contained in the gold band was the one phrase: ‘Perpetually.’
When she lastly tracked down his widow, she quietly returned the ring, with out fuss or media consideration. She by no means divulged the person’s title.
However there was no lingering thriller concerning the title of the person within the purple bandana who saved her when he discovered her unconscious within the flames.
He was Welles Crowther, a 24-year-old equities dealer and volunteer firefighter. He died when the south tower collapsed.
Welles’s household have been sure their son was the hero of the WTC assaults, as quickly as they heard of a person sporting a purple bandana over his face. Welles had carried one in his pocket since he was six years previous.
The New York Occasions later revealed that Tania’s actual title was Alicia Esteve Head (pictured in white shirt) and on September 11, 2001, she was not within the south tower, and even in New York
At a memorial service for Welles in 2006, Tania was too overcome with emotion to talk.
However a buddy stood up and browse her assertion: ‘Even after 5 years, I nonetheless bear the burden of being alive when so many different lives have been taken from us… In my household, we have now a convention at Christmas. Every year, we inform the youngsters tales drawn from our lives.
‘The story they wish to hear, 12 months after 12 months, is the story of the person within the purple bandana, whose braveness stood taller than the Twin Towers themselves.’
It had taken Tania a very long time to construct the arrogance to speak in public about her 9/11 experiences.
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She did not inform her complete story till 2003, when a person named Gerry Bogacz invited her to hitch his group, the World Commerce Heart Survivors’ Community, which met in actual life in addition to on-line.
Different members have been surprised by what she had suffered. A few of them had been within the Twin Towers that day, others had misplaced family members: however Tania was the one member who belonged to each classes.
Much more, she was one of many 20 or so individuals who had been on the topmost flooring, above the purpose of the planes’ impression, and survived. In consequence, she was handled virtually with reverence by a few of the others.
In a wierd means, Tania grew to become a star survivor — her standing confirmed when Bogacz was voted off the group’s board and Tania was elected as its president… a brand new title, created particularly for her.
Tania pushed for the community to implement a code of conduct, guarding in opposition to scammers who claimed to be 9/11 victims nursing long-term accidents and searching for to con cash from well-wishers.
Spending her personal cash freely, Tania grew to become the group’s driving power — organising conferences, reserving audio system, successful non-profit standing for the group.
On the identical time, film-maker Angelo Guglielmo was making a documentary concerning the survivors.
He hoped to make Tania one of many central figures in his programme. Guglielmo found she was a tough topic, although, and never at all times keen to co-operate.
He additionally could not assist noticing that the scars on her arm, although critical, did not look as if the limb had been reattached. However he mentioned nothing, feeling it will be crass to remark.
In the meantime, a few of her fellow survivors puzzled about parts of Tania’s story. Little issues appeared odd. One was puzzled Tania generally known as Dave her fiancé, at different occasions her husband. She defined she had petitioned to have their marriage posthumously ratified.
Tania by no means shared images of herself and Dave collectively, and was reluctant to make his final title public.
Finally she revealed it, in confidence, to 1 buddy — who checked and noticed that certainly Dave had died within the north tower. His obituary, although, made no point out of Tania.
Most important of all, when mates visited Tania at her condominium, the retriever she had at all times talked about, Elvis, was by no means there. He was at all times being walked by Tania’s maid.
These discrepancies have been ignored till September 2006, the fifth anniversary of the assaults.
Two reporters on the New York Occasions, Serge Kovaleski and Dave Dunlap, examine Tania’s story and have been puzzled to search out that she had not been interviewed in 2001, in the course of the rapid aftermath.
Their suspicions mounted once they tried to talk to Tania and he or she repeatedly dodged interviews, then began blocking their calls. She warned different survivors to not discuss to the reporters both.
Panicked by the reporters, she went to a lawyer to organize an announcement — however as she did so, she admitted a number of inconsistencies in her story.
She stole many details from an interview within the New York Occasions with Ling Younger. Ling was guided to security by Welles Crowther (pictured), the person within the purple bandana and a real hero
She conceded she had by no means labored for Merrill Lynch. She was not a rising star on the financial institution — she had merely visited the places of work to use for an internship, by dangerous luck on the very day of the assaults.
Dave was not her fiancé. That they had by no means owned a canine known as Elvis. The truth is, that they had been courting just for just a few weeks.
Rumours quickly unfold by way of the survivors’ group: Tania Head’s story could not be trusted. Components have been exaggerated, embellished or just not true.
When the New York Occasions printed its exposé every week later, even the lawyer’s assertion fell aside.
Tania’s actual title, the paper revealed, was Alicia Esteve Head. On September 11, 2001, she was not within the south tower of the WTC. She was not even in New York, or the U.S.
She was in Barcelona, a pupil at a enterprise faculty. Merrill Lynch had no file of her, not whilst an applicant for an internship.
Dave’s household had by no means heard of her. And he had by no means met her.
Every little thing she wove into her story was gleaned from newspaper and journal studies, together with Dave’s id.
Particularly, she stole many details from an interview within the New York Occasions with Ling Younger, who labored within the New York tax division on the 86th ground of the south tower, and who was within the sky foyer when the second airplane struck.
Ling was guided to security by way of the rubble and flames by Welles Crowther, the person within the purple bandana and a real hero of the assaults. Of all of the folks betrayed by Tania, none have been extra harm than the Crowther household.
Alicia Head was the fifth youngster and solely daughter of a rich Spanish household. The scars on her arm got here from a automobile accident in her teenagers, on the Spanish coast with mates.
An attention-seeker since childhood, she used to inform folks in Barcelona that the automobile was a Ferrari and the driving force was her fiancé — the love of her life. Extra lies.
After which she disappeared after the New York Occasions printed her {photograph} and story beneath the headline: ‘In a 9/11 Survival Story, the Items Simply Do not Match’.
She did not make any try to brazen it out. She made no excuses. She merely vanished.
Additional investigation steered she had dedicated no crime. Tania did not take funds from the group — in reality, she was a number one donor.
Why she instructed such colossal lies, perpetrating probably the most offensive fraud conceivable, nobody knew — simply as nobody knew what occurred to Alicia Head subsequent.
One hearsay mentioned she returned to Spain, the place she was sacked from no less than one job after her lies in America caught up along with her. One other mentioned she killed herself in 2008, unable to reside with the disgrace of what she had completed.
Establishing the reality of this, like a lot else with Alicia/Tania, was tough… not least as a result of she was estranged from her household. Removed from coming to her hospital bedside, her mother and father have been not in contact along with her.
Her present whereabouts are unknown. However film-maker Angelo Guglielmo believes he noticed her as soon as. She was in New York, popping out of a resort. And Angelo confronted her.
‘How dare you?’ he shouted. ‘Do not you might have any emotions for the folks you’ve got harm?’
Alicia Head threatened to name the police. Then she disappeared into the gang.
Angelo Guglielmo’s movie about Tania Head, additionally instructed in a ebook co-written with Robin Gaby Fisher, is known as The Lady Who Wasn’t There.
