First Responder Remembers 9/11: 'I Can Still Hear The Screams'

SAGAPONACK, NY — For Kathy Whittaker Coleman, who was a first responder on 9/11, the memories are still vividly clear.

And now, for the first time since that deceptively blue morning 19 years ago, Coleman has decided to speak about her experiences on the day when the world changed forever — and about the impacts of 9/11 that have colored everything in her life that came after.

Coleman said in 19 years, she has never shared her story. Not even with her siblings.

It was just too difficult to talk about.

Coleman was living in the Bronx watching the morning news when she saw the first plane strike the World Trade Center. "As an EMT, I got in my car immediately and went into New York City. I had no trouble getting in there but getting closer to the scene was quite challenging. It was absolute chaos and the most frightening thing I've ever witnessed," she said.

She can't recall time frames or even any sort of order to what she experienced, Coleman said.

"I recall helping set up a triage station near the pile after hiding behind an ambulance with another group of people when the tower fell," she said.

Her memories are stark snapshots of horror.

"When thinking back and trying to make order so I can write about it I can still hear the screams and thuds ... seeing people jumping from the top floors of buildings didn't connect, in my mind at the time, to the sounds I was hearing."

She does not remember resting or sleeping, although she must have, Coleman said.

"I remember getting cut trying to move metal but not feeling it," she said. "I remember firemen trying to pull me off a pile I was desperate to get to the bottom of. I remember shock, horror, fear and compassion with empathy for people roaming aimlessly, wounded badly. I remember having to walk around dead bodies and different body parts."

Coleman said she remember before the Twin Towers fell, being able to send a text to her mother, to let her know where she was and telling her not to worry.

"It was six weeks before I knew she never got that message," Coleman said.

On 9/11, she said: "I remember utter exhaustion. First, the physical exhaustion that I, and every person there, pushed through. I remember just sitting down, no idea where, and crying silently. I just looked around and wondered if this was how the world was going to end. I've always been a problem solver but this . . . . This blew my mind."

And yet, in the midst of the unthinkable, there were moments of grace.

"I remember someone walking up to me and putting a warm, calm hand on my shoulder offering me coffee," she said. "I remember a camaraderie that has stuck in my heart to this day — like it just happened yesterday. Even as I just sat down wherever I was I don't remember being alone — the way all the responders, and residents supporting responders, worked together in the most horrific pain, and abundant anguish anyone could ever imagine, let alone feel."

Coleman said she remembers getting home weeks later with no memory of actually leaving. She learned that her cousin's new husband's firehouse was that one that had lost the most members — and she felt her work wasn't done.

She posted on her family's genealogy website, asking members from two countries to donate, to help. They raised funds and also created a "plaque of gratitude" for the firehouse, where, in December, 2001, family members met for a ceremony to remember the lost.

"In hindsight, I was sort of still in 'go' mode and the whole experience hadn't hit me fully yet," Coleman said.

There were other heartbreaks: Soon after the presentation at the firehouse, Coleman's brother suffered a major heart attack and died instantly at 43, the same age and cause of death as her father. "My mother suffered a heart attack before his funeral —broken heart syndrome," she said.

The losses continued to mount.

"I'd been in EMS a good number of years and was used to saving lives. Between 9/11 and my brother, I felt I wasn't able to save anyone," she aid.

A week later, she was diagnosed with cancer.

And, Coleman said, the lingering and devastating effects of 9/11 lasted for years.

"In the early months of the following year I developed anxiety and tremendous depression," she said.

At the time, Coleman was living with her former husband in the Bronx, just a half block from the L train.

"It wasn't long before the rattling of the train and the planes coming and going buried me in a PTSD and a 'me' I didn't recognize," she said.

She spent the next six years paralyzed with fear. "I couldn't leave the house. I became paranoid and terrified of every little thing. I went to an occasional doctor appointment just to get meds and then right back to bed. I'd even hallucinated."

The pain became too much to bear, Coleman said.

"I didn't want to live anymore"

"Toward the end of those six years I just didn't want to live anymore," she said. "I didn't want to keep reliving and remembering 9/11 so I took a handful of antidepressants — that was all I had — and went to sleep. My husband came home from work and couldn't wake me so he called rescue."

Her husband, she said, was able to wake her before the ambulance arrived. When she tried to stand, she had a seizure, fell and broke her leg.

Then, in early 2008, Coleman realized if she didn't do something, she would die of anguish.

"I have a son and four grandchildren, not to mention my mother and siblings," she said. "And so, I sold everything I had — jewelry, art, etc., — and moved to East Hampton to try to pull myself together."

Her son came up from Georgia and stayed with her for the first two years to help. "Everything else, including my husband, was left behind in the Bronx," she said.

Her ordeal didn't end there. Coleman has been hit hard by daunting health challenges, many cancers related to 9/11, she said.

"Within approximately seven months I was diagnosed with an invasive malignant melanoma and had a rather large surgery removing a good portion of my upper arm," she said. "I was blessed to have found who I consider to be the best doctor I've ever met, a PA named Jerry Simons. He saved my life."

In the ensuing years he guided Coleman, helping her to embrace a healthier diet, choose supplements to replace prescriptions, and pursue yoga, meditation, and prayer, she said.

"In time, I was able to find myself again," she said.

Coleman started writing, doing motivational speaking, and teaching women's empowerment classes.

"I really pulled myself out of the PTSD pit," she said.

But the health concerns linger. To date, she said, she has had nine cancers, eight of which she says were related to 9/11, and a heart attack.

And the 9/11-related anxiety still gets triggered at times, she said. " I live near the airport and if something flies too low, I start to panic. But it's so much better than it was. Being able to visualize the good that has come since 9/11 has helped me tremendously — journaling, prayer, meditation. I live a very positive life."

Coleman said she doesn't share what she's endured. "But my life had changed so much for the better," she said. "I'm a far better person than I was 19 years ago. I'm one who believes everything happens for a reason and that no matter what's going on it'll all work out for the better. We don't necessarily have to understand why things are happening as long as we remember to be grateful for the little things and have faith that it'll work out in the end."

After living through what she has, Coleman said her feathers are rarely ruffled.

Today, she lives a life she cherishes with her second husband Bob. Working as a master certified coach, she said: "I understand a lot about people and life. I live a life of service in a never-ending attempt to repay the universe's gift of life. With all I've been through I shouldn't be here —yet here I am. And for that I'm eternally grateful."

Even after nine cancers, a heart attack and a few other health issues Coleman said she continues to eat right, exercise, pray, yoga, meditate, and do for others as often as possible.

"To look at me you'd never guess that I've been through all that and so much more. I love my life and live in gratitude every second of every day. I pray nobody ever forgets 9/11 and those following days. But, for me, I remember in silence with the TV, computer and cellphone turned off for the day. As positive as I am —I still have trouble with the day."

And so, Coleman said, on 9/11, she hibernates. "I turn inward in remembrance, prayer and gratitude," she said.