So often, we remember 9/11 as a horrible tragedy that happened 20 some years ago and killed thousands of people. What is often overlooked is the survivor. There are those who lived it, truly LIVED it, such as survivor Thomas Canavan, one of September 11th’s 27 survivors. Thomas made it out of the mass disaster alive after crawling through over 75 feet of rubble (horizontally and vertically), but his story is very different from the one most of us can imagine from the footage we saw on our TV screens.
Kylee Tinney experienced the real 9/11 when she engaged Thomas, a museum worker at the 9/11 Memorial, in a conversation that changed her outlook on life. “Our driver dropped us off near the 9/11 Memorial entrance,” she wrote in a Facebook post that has now been shared nearly 160,000 times by those whose lives have also been touched by this survivor’s powerful story: ” It was POURING and the line was long, so I dashed to the nearest cover, which was near the museum exit door, while Clint went to buy tickets.
A police officer and a museum facilities dispatcher were standing nearby. I listened in on their casual conversation for a few minutes before summoning the courage to ask them where they were on 9/11. “The 47th floor of the North Tower,” the museum employee explained. Thomas Canavan, one of the collapse’s twenty survivors. Wow. He then proceeded to tell me his harrowing story of being buried alive, crawling through 46 horizontal and roughly 30 vertical feet of rubble, emerging alive, severely injured (but not realizing it due to adrenaline), and losing the friends he started with.
We talked for 20 minutes as if there were no one else around. I asked him some questions, and he gladly answered them. One of the many things that stood out from that conversation was his statement that it’s so deceiving on TV when all you see is a cloud of dust and a small hole from the plane. The reality that you don’t see at home is that it was desks, file cabinets, chairs, stairwells, elevators, and people that fell on him. The planes’ little holes in the Towers on TV were actually 6 stories tall. The scope of this tragedy was far greater than most of us could imagine from our television screens. Something difficult for us to comprehend.
Clint returned with museum tickets for 11:30 a.m. It was 10:45am so we were going to have to wait a bit. The rain had stopped by this point. “You guys come with me,” Tom said without hesitation. He led us past the (still-long) line, past the cops, and told the security guards, “These are my two friends, let them in.” And we were immediately escorted inside, as if the President had just given orders. I could tell Tom was well-liked by everyone around him. He told us to look for him in the museum, where we would find his picture and the watch he wore that fateful day.
Sure enough, we found Tom’s watch displayed in a shadow box. His wristwatch stopped as a result of the impact of the collapse; a moment frozen in time. The eerie and ironic tone. Tom said it was the last time he wore a watch. It’s easy to dismiss September 11th as just another tragic event in our country’s history. We often forget that these were/are REAL PEOPLE, many of whom are still suffering the consequences every day. Even something as simple as being unable to wear a watch due to haunting flashbacks.
We were only there for two hours, but we could have stayed for days. We saw Tom not far away as we exited the museum. We called out his name and ended up talking for a while longer. “See, we Yankees aren’t so bad after all,” he said before leaving in his Northern drawl. You never know what you’ll discover about people until you sit down and talk to them.” This caused me to pause… While I was speaking with Tom, ten or more visitors approached him and inquired about the location of the restroom, the museum entrance, the nearest restaurant, and so on.
But I had the impression that not many people asked him about 9/11, the reason we were all here. Nobody knew what he had been through. I could only be thankful that it was raining that day and that I chose that specific awning to run under, or else I would have missed this chance and humbling conversation of fate. I can only hope he was as moved to tell us his story as we were to hear it.
When we said our goodbyes, I told him we’d bring his story back to The South, which is why I felt compelled to share it with you today. I may never see my FRIEND Tom again, which saddens me, but on September 11th, I will remember him and all the other men and women who died and lived in the face of pure evil. As always, I am Proud to be an American.”
Furthermore, for the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, National Geographic will cover the story from survivor Thomas Canavan’s perspective, as well as the perspectives of other survivors and first responders, in a 7-hour docuseries. The documentary series, 9/11: One Day in America, was created by filmmakers Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin, who interviewed 54 people over the course of three years. The survivors will share minute-by-minute accounts of how they responded and how they survived. The series also includes previously unseen footage from the area surrounding the towers.
Thomas Canavan, a survivor, appears in the third episode, “The South Tower,” which premiered on August 30, 2021. In the episode, an announcement instructs survivors of the attack to remain where they are until the north tower is struck by a second plane. At that point, those in the south tower had no choice but to flee to safety, where first responders were overwhelmed with injured survivors like Thomas Canavan. Thomas Canavan, a survivor, was filmed that day as he began to leave the tragic site.
He told the cameras about his experience, saying, “Big boom. Coming down the steps everything was fine until we got to the basement and then everything just fell in. I crawled out after being trapped under there with another guy. I kept getting bashed around and getting hit in the head. We finally made our way out over the rubble.” If Thomas’ story has inspired you and changed your perspective on 9/11, please SHARE it with your Facebook friends!