He September 11, 2001the policeman Will Jimeno He got up early to work like any other day at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) Bus Terminal in Manhattan. That morning, around 8:45 a.m., Will patrolled the area around the station, located a few blocks from the World Trade Center (WTC).
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A few seconds after that time, Jimeno saw a shadow flying over his head. “I saw something dark that passed quickly, but I didn’t pay attention to it. After that, on our radios they asked all the agents to return to the PANYNJ station. That was something very strange,” the former officer told EL TIEMPO in an interview.
When he entered the station, the television was on.
He and his colleagues could not believe what was being shown on the news. “We saw that one of the WTC towers had a very large hole, from which dark smoke was coming out,” he said. They were told that a plane had crashed into the towers, but the information was still very confusing. His boss told the assembled police officers that a bus would take them to the WTC to help evacuate the buildings.
“When we got off the bus, we were one block away from the towers. The first one was smoking, but then I saw that on the corner of the second one there was also fire. At that time we didn’t know that the other building had also been attacked, but we did see how people were jumping from the top floors.”
This is how Jimeno, born in Barranquilla, remembers how the longest 13 hours of his life began when he was trapped under the rubble of the WTC after the terrorist attackHe was one of the hundreds of uniformed officers who arrived at the scene to participate in the rescue efforts and one of the few survivors who were found alive under the remains of the Twin Towers.
The collapse of the towers
It was just after 9:10 a.m. There was a mood of confusion and fear in front of the smoking Twin Towers. Sergeant John McLoughlin – one of the PANYNJ chiefs – assembled a team of four people to accompany him inside the building. The sergeant knew the WTC by heart. The mission was to help the wounded. McLoughlin was followed by officers Jimeno, Pezzulo and Rodrigues. Together, they entered the towers and headed through the underground mall to try to reach the highest floors.
Along the way, they encountered Officer Christopher Amoroso, who was bleeding from one eye after being hit by a piece of concrete that broke loose when the planes struck. Amoroso was also helping with the evacuation operations. He refused to be treated and joined McLoughlin’s team to continue the rescue efforts.
“While we were looking for some stairs, we suddenly heard abooooom“I turn around, look at the second tower, and I see a fireball as big as a house. Everything started to shake like an earthquake. And my sergeant (McLoughlin) told us to run to the elevator shaft. We ran as everything was shaking. I saw parts of the building crumbling and concrete was falling on us. I grabbed my radio and yelled, ‘Help us!’ but something hit my hand and I lost the radio. I tried to cover myself and I started to hear what sounded like a million trains falling on us,” Jimeno recounts.
The North Tower of the WTC had collapsed. All was silent for a few minutes.
Jimeno opened his eyes. He was lying in the middle of the rubble, but a piece of wall had fallen on the left side of his body. He couldn’t move. His arms were free, but his legs were trapped. The policeman saw a hole that he estimated was about six meters above his head. A thread of light entered through it. Everything around him was concrete.
McLoughlin’s voice echoed through the fallen walls. “My sergeant, who was also trapped, asked us to tell him how we were. I screamed that I couldn’t move and that I was in a lot of pain. Pezzulo said I could get out of where I was, but neither Rodrigues nor Amoroso answered.”
Agent Pezzulo approached Jimeno and tried to move the heavy wall for several minutes. “He told me he couldn’t get me out and that’s when I knew I was in a lot of trouble. He kept trying to help me, but he couldn’t. We heard a boom again.”“Ooom! like the first one, and when everything was falling I thought I was going to die.”
The second tower collapsed. It was around 10:20 am.
As the building collapsed on them, Jimeno crossed his arms and placed them over his chest in case he died. It was a gesture to let his wife, Allison — who was seven months pregnant — know that he was thinking of her during the final moments of his life. “The concrete hit Pezzulo, and when I looked back at him, he was bleeding a lot. He said, ‘Willy, I’m dying. Don’t ever forget that I died trying to save you. ’”
The next 10 hours were long and difficult. Pieces of burning debris fell, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t move. “There was a moment when I wanted to die. I had lost three companions: Rodrigues, Amoroso and Pezzulo.”
Her only “consolation” was thinking of Allison, her daughter Bianca, who was 4 years old at the time, and Olivia, the baby who was about to be born. “I was thankful for my 33 years of life, for my parents for having brought me to this country and for being able to help so many people as an immigrant.” Jimeno and McLoughlin tried to keep each other awake. They talked. They asked each other how they were doing and encouraged each other not to lose hope of getting out alive. They kept telling each other that they couldn’t fall asleep.
After losing track of time, Jimeno says that hours later he had a vision. He was very thirsty, tired, and his body was beginning to swell. “I saw a person walking towards me, he had brown hair and he offered me a bottle of water. For me that person was Jesus. He told me to keep fighting,” he recalls.
It was around 8 p.m. Suddenly, he heard someone in the distance shouting, “United States Marine Corps, can you hear us?!” Jimeno shouted back, asking for help. “They were reserve Marines who arrived with rescuers. They went down the hole and for three hours they were trying to break the concrete to get me out. “I begged them to cut off my leg so they could also rescue my sergeant, but they told me they would get me out in ‘one piece,'” he says, recalling that moment.
Finally, Jimeno emerged from the rubble after 13 hours and was taken straight to the hospital. “While I was on the stretcher, that was the first time I cried. I saw the moon and the sky. I saw a lot of smoke and I didn’t see the buildings. I was crying because I knew we didn’t manage to save all the people we would have liked.”
Will Jimeno’s recovery
Jimeno arrived at the hospital around midnight. He had to undergo emergency surgery and his heart stopped twice, but they managed to revive him. His body was twice its normal size due to swelling. Over the next 13 days he underwent eight operations. Doctors had to remove dead muscles and part of his left leg was left “as if it had been bitten by a shark,” he says.
It took him two years to learn to walk again. His second daughter was born on November 26, 2001, the same day that Will was born in Barranquilla in 1967.
Despite the harsh experience he lived under the rubble of the WTC, years later Jimeno says that he saw the solidarity of the American people that day. “Today, I only want to remember the good things that happened that day, not the bad. I saw a lot of solidarity. That day, the terrorists thought they were going to win, but the US and the people of the whole world came out stronger,” he reflects.
The life stories of Jimeno and Sergeant McLoughlin, who also emerged alive from the rubble that night, inspired the film industry. Their testimonies are the subject of a film directed by Oliver Stone in 2006. Called World Trade Center, the feature film tells the story of the two of them on that fateful day of September 11, 2001. The film starred Nicolas Cage (who plays McLoughlin) and Michael Peña (Will Jimeno).
“That experience was tough because my sergeant didn’t want to make the film. He didn’t have faith in Hollywood. But we had a very good group of teachers who wanted to send a good message with the film. I have a lot of love for Oliver, I am very proud that many people from all over the world send me messages telling me that they saw the film,” he confesses.
That experience was tough because my sergeant didn’t want to make the film. He didn’t have faith in Hollywood. But we had a very good group of teachers who wanted to send a good message with the film. I have a lot of love for Oliver, I’m very proud that so many people from all over the world send me messages telling me that they saw the film.
Today he spends his days giving lectures and writing about his life. He spends his free time with his family and practicing archery. “I had to learn to live again and this experience is something I live with every day. I want to be an example that good things can come out of tragedy,” he says.
Jimeno has published two books: Sunrise Through Darkness, which tells the story of how she learned to live with post-traumatic stress after 9/11. The other is Immigrant, American, Survivor, a children’s book about growing up as an immigrant in the U.S. and how she survived the attack.
This second book also tells how proud he is to be Colombian and having emigrated to New Jersey at the age of 2 (1970). “One thing my mother taught me was that, even though we lived in the United States, we should never forget things about our Colombian culture.” In fact, Jimeno confesses that he is a big fan of the Colombian National Team. His children’s book even has on the cover a boy wearing a tricolor shirt marked with the number 10 and who sees the Statue of Liberty in the distance.
*This article was originally published on September 11, 2021, 20 years after the attack on the Twin Towers. EL TIEMPO is publishing it again due to its journalistic content just 23 years after the attacks.
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