[ad_1]
Miosotys Santiago, now inhabitant of Groton, saw the two towers collapse. As she recounts, she lost her fiancee, her job and some friends on September 11, 2001. Life is better now, but Santiago still clearly remembers the chaos of that day.
During a lengthy interview in August, Santiago shared his 9/11 experience with The Day and explained how it affected his life years later. Her then-fiancé, Andrew Bailey, was killed in the terrorist attack. Bailey was born in England and moved to Jamaica at the age of 12. His family then sent him to Brooklyn, where he will spend the rest of his life.
The two met at work – Santiago was working security at the World Trade Center and Bailey was site security supervisor for insurance brokerage Marsh McLennan in Tower 1. She said he had been watching her for a while. , and one day he asked her to lunch.
“That lunch break made us fall in love at the lunch table at Miami Subs across from 5 World Trade Center, and it became a daily lunch date,” Santiago said.
Their lives quickly aligned behind their love. In Bailey, Santiago saw a gentle man, a beloved man, a man who made people feel comfortable. When they met he was the father of a daughter and Santiago was a single mother of three.
“We became an instant family, and our four daughters were instantly connected, and from day one they loved each other,” she said. “It was a beautiful thing. He was very patient, very kind, respectful, he treated me like a queen, never disrespected me, always tried to make the most of the moment. He was very humble. He didn’t need to. nothing, nothing, bothered him, it was always me complaining.
Santiago begins recounting 9/11 the day before, September 10, when Bailey’s co-worker came to the house and asked him to change teams. Bailey was scheduled for 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. just like Santiago, and although he didn’t want to take a shift earlier, because he and his fiancee would be taking the train together to work. But he finally nodded.
As Bailey got ready to leave on the morning of September 11, Santiago got up from bed to use the bathroom. He pulled her by the arm and said, “You know you’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” Santiago said. “And I said you’re the best thing that ever happened to me, too. He kissed me on the forehead and told me to call me when you get to work.”
Santiago noticed later that morning on his way out that Bailey had left his money for breakfast.
As Santiago was on his way to work, his eldest daughter called and told him she had to get off the bus. Her youngest daughter had missed the bus. Her older child was adamant that Santiago was getting off the bus, even though she told her daughter she was going to be late for work. Santiago ended up taking all of his daughters to school.
Finally, Santiago had arrived for work about 40 minutes later than usual. She walked up to the World Trade Center Plaza and walked towards the building. She pulled out her phone to call Bailey and let him know she was late because she wasn’t in her office and they were having breakfast every morning in the plaza, “and that’s at that moment I heard the roar of a plane. I looked up, and the plane hit tower 1. “
“I, who was working security, automatically rushed into the towers. There was just a rumble and chaos right away. You could see in people’s faces, they really didn’t know what was going on. passed down, ”Santiago said.
She remembers running towards the building: “That’s when a port authority police officer grabbed me and she said, ‘Where are you going? I said, ‘My fiancé is up there, I have to find him.’ She said, ‘Hun, we have to go’, so she grabbed me, and she and I ran across the square with all the fallen debris. Then we walked down Broadway when she handed me over to someone.
“No phone is working”
Santiago stayed on Broadway, watching everything, until the second plane hit the second tower. She said she saw people fall and jump from the building, and everyone with her on the street was in total shock.
“I’m screaming, trying to call her phone, no phone is working. I found a phone booth where I was able to get in touch with my little sister, and I was looking at tower 1, and I smelled the earth beneath me was shaking like an earthquake was brewing, and as I looked up I noticed something was going on with 2 World Trade Center, and I see the tip of the building starting to come down, and I was so confused. I didn’t know what was going on, I was just stuck. “
A man came over and grabbed Santiago’s arm and said, “We have to run” as Tower 2 collapsed. They ran down the street in the midst of a cloud of dust that covered everything; Santiago was hit by something in the back that knocked her to the ground. She walked under a car and waited for everything to stop. She said that everything had become silent, and after a while, when the silence was too much to bear, she got out from under the car and started to walk. She took a deep breath and immediately began to choke on the ash in the air, so she took off her shirt and used it to cover her mouth. She used touch, trying to find the surface of cars or the walls of buildings, to find her way.
“I went pretty far to where I took a turn, and that’s where I saw this huge beam of sunlight hitting the street, so I just started running towards this beam. of light, ”she said. “As I turned around, 1 World Trade Center was still standing, but I saw the tip of the antenna of a World Trade tilt slightly, and that’s when I saw 1 World Trade also collapsed. “
Santiago ran from the World Trade Center neighborhood to where his sister worked at 38th and Madison on what she said was “pure adrenaline.”
“My sister’s coworkers let me in, they saw me outside with all this ashes, and they asked me if I was okay, and I asked for my sister,” Santiago said. “They said, ‘She’s looking for you.’ My sister was running towards the World Trade Center. “
The sisters walked to another sister’s house on 101st and Park, “and the three of us, along with my sister’s children, decided to evacuate Manhattan. I don’t come home until maybe 6 am that night. ”Santiago said his uncle was an NYPD officer who went to take his children out of school.
Santiago concludes his description of September 11 by saying, “And that’s when my journey began.
“I open now”
She spent time on the site trying to find Bailey, holding her picture and toothbrush and begging authorities, for months after 9/11. Santiago decided to have the Bailey memorial in October after hearing nothing from the medical examiner. After moving to Connecticut in March 2002 – too many memories in New York – she finally got a call from the medical examiner telling her that Bailey’s right arm and left leg had been found.
Santiago lives in Groton after spending time in Griswold and Westerly. She has worked with people with developmental disabilities for 17 years at Sunrise Northeast, and has been with the Northeast Medical Group for four years. She also just celebrated her third birthday as an inspirational speaker and said she worked specifically at events for women and girls in New London.
In 2020, Santiago published his memoir, “The Diamond of God”.
“Having been through everything that I’ve been through, I’ve always kept it to a minimum like it’s normal, like it’s what happens to people. But for some reason this situation, I feel like j I was pushed to be a little more on the foreground, to be a voice, “she said.” I open up now and I make myself more aware … “
[ad_2]
Source link