TARA JONES (TEACHER, CHILDREN’S DISCOVERY CENTER): Every year in my classroom, the children want me to tell them my story about what happened to me on 9/11. I think it’s very important, so they can see different aspects of what happened to different people, to think about others, to help when you can.

SUPURNA VEDBRAT (PARENT, CHILDREN’S DISCOVERY CENTER): Their selfless act of singular focus just speaks volumes of what their character’s about. How they acted that day was equally important as any of the first responders.

TEXT ON SCREEN:
September 11, 2001

NARRATION: It was a typical morning at the Children’s Discovery Center, a day care located in Building 5 of the World Trade Center just across from the Twin Towers.

TARA JONES: It was a beautiful fall day; the skies were blue, and my first few children came in. There’s a grandfather signing his grandchild in child in, and then a mom and dad came in, and they were signing her in, and we were just chatting. 

NARRATION: By 8:45, more than two dozen children, ranging from a few months to 4 years old, had been dropped off by their parents and grandparents, some of whom worked in the twin towers.

SUPURNA VEDBRAT: My son, Mahir, he was about 18 months old at the time, and for me, I was a first-time mom, so I really wanted to make sure he was well taken care of. 

TARA JONES: The rest of the children are sitting down having breakfast and all of a sudden there’s this extremely loud swooshing sound overhead.

TEXT ON SCREEN:
8:46 AM

TARA JONES: I don’t know what it could have been that could make it sound that way. It didn’t sound like an explosion, and we couldn’t see the towers, but we could see people running down the street. I said to the kids – Emergency, emergency, we gotta go, we gotta go! The children came directly to teachers and were ready to go.

NARRATION: Fourteen teachers and staff rushed to collect the children, bringing them out side exits.

TARA JONES: We get out the door. You almost feel safe for a moment because you can’t see anything until we get to the end of our hallway, and then you can see everything just falling out of the building. We went right outside and we said, let’s at least walk down the street and sit on the edge of the cemetery. I think we evacuated pretty fast.

TEXT ON SCREEN:
8:50 AM

ONICA SARJEANT (TEACHER, CHILDREN’S DISCOVERY CENTER): I was late to work, and I was with my almost 4-year-old son who was also a student at the Children’s Discovery Center, and we came out of Fulton Street station, as we normally do, and we walked towards the building of Five World Trade Center.

YAVNE’EL MONTANO (STUDENT, CHILDREN’S DISCOVERY CENTER): I remember getting off the train with my mom. I sensed that something was not right. At that time I didn’t understand why there was a crowd of people there, a lot of – a lot of anxiety in the air.

ONICA SARJEANT: The closer we got, there were people looking up, and I saw a gaping hole in the building.

ARCHIVAL (CNN, 9-11-01):
NEWS REPORT: This just in, you are looking at the World Trade Center, and we have unconfirmed reports this morning that a plane has crashed into one of the towers.

ONICA SARJEANT: My thinking is – Impossible. That’s impossible, that’s impossible. That’s not what really happened. So I just kept going, and I was like – I just need to get to work. And I’m looking to see anyone familiar – teachers, children, babies, something that would let me know that they’re safe.

TARA JONES: Lo and behold, they found us on that corner. Our entire school met up in that little area. We don’t have phones. We don’t have our purses. No money, no nothing. While we were on that corner, you look up, and you see that people are jumping out of the towers because I can remember holding my ears and saying – No, I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear it, but you can’t. You can’t block your ears because it’s so loud. There’s so many people, and everybody’s screaming because people are jumping, because they’d rather fall than burn. And I think that’s one of the most horrific things of that day.

TEXT ON SCREEN:
9:03 AM

ARCHIVAL (WNYW FOX 5, 9-11-01):
NEWS ANCHOR 1: Oh my goodness, there’s another one.
NEWS ANCHOR 2: This seems to be on purpose.
NEWS ANCHOR 1: Oh my goodness, now you … now it’s obvious. I think we have a terrorist act of proportions that we cannot begin to imagine. 

TARA JONES: I looked at everybody, and you can just see the fear come across everyone’s face, and then everything was – fast.

ONICA SARJEANT: We just got up, and my son, he held on.

YAVNE’EL MONTANO: Immediately the teachers grabbed the kids however they could and ran with us.

TARA JONES: Everyone is running, and we all got separated. We ran towards City Hall. The other group ran towards the pier.

ONICA SARJEANT: There was no stopping, there was no looking up, there was no looking down, there was no left, there was no right, there was no back. We just kept going and going, just, like, running.

TARA JONES: I have one child holding my clothes. I think I’m carrying two, and I was like, oh, God, I’m so tired.

NARRATION: Supurna VedBrat was preparing to walk down to the cemetery after learning the children had gathered there. 

SUPURNA VEDBRAT: As I was getting prepped to go, with diapers and baby food, all the little things to help out with the teachers and the kids, I saw that the twin towers were beginning to fall to the ground.

TEXT ON SCREEN:
9:59AM
World Trade Center South Tower collapses

TARA JONES: The ground is rumbling, and you see this huge black cloud just rolling down the street towards us. It looks like a gigantic monster or something, like, unbelievable.

ONICA SARJEANT: We saw people covered in this white soot that was just raining out of the sky.

SUPURNA VEDBRAT: I knew that walking blindly down towards the World Trade Center was not actually going to be very helpful, because once I left my apartment I wouldn’t be able to communicate with anyone to find out, like, anything. All I wanted was that my son was out of the vicinity. 

TEXT ON SCREEN:
10:28AM
World Trade Center North Tower collapses

ARCHIVAL (CBC, 9-11-01):
NEWS ANCHOR: The second tower collapsing as rescue officials were trying to evacuate the building, trying to put the fire out. Both towers at the World Trade Center, 110-story buildings, have collapsed.

ARCHIVAL (9-11-01):
FIRST RESPONDERS: It’s coming down! It’s coming down!

SUPURNA VEDBRAT: The moments when I was waiting to find out what was going on were probably, you know, one of the most difficult moments of my life. 

ARCHIVAL (9-11-01):
FIRST RESPONDERS: Don’t look back! Keep going! Keep going! Let’s go! 

ONICA SARJEANT: We ran until we approached a supermarket, and they gave us water, crackers and we put them in the shopping carts.

YAVNE’EL MONTANO: You just get tossed in the basket; you’re getting pushed down the street. It was very, very bumpy. I just remember being in that cart, just looking around at everything.

ONICA SARJEANT: What’s amazing was that there was no crying. There was no screaming. There was no physical trauma that they exhibited, but we just have to move, and we kept going and going, and these babies are inhaling this, which is why some of the men, they just took their shirts off and threw it over the babies. 

NARRATION: There were two larger groups of babies and young children. Onica Sarjeant and two fellow teachers walked for three miles with one of them.

ONICA SARJEANT: My co-teacher suggested if we find a church, a church is a safe haven. We arrived to the church, and they received us, open arms. We got the moment to sit. To actually sit and just [exhales].

TARA JONES: We were in Chinatown, and we ran into a group of police officers and this one officer really screaming at us, and he’s like – What are you doing out here with all of these children? You’re going to get’em killed. More planes are coming. They’re going to blow up the whole, Manhattan, and we’re like, what? Like, how do we get out of here? And there’s another officer. We walked up to her, and she seemed very calm and asked her, is it true? Are more planes coming? And we hear planes, and I was like, okay, God, that’s it. This is how I die. O.K. And I really accepted death at that moment because I thought that was it for us. 

ARCHIVAL (WNYW FOX 5, 9-11-01):
NEWS ANCHOR: These are fighter jets, one would presume, to prevent any further attacks.

TARA JONES: It was the U.S. Air Force, thank God. We didn’t know that at that time.  

NARRATION: Jones says complete strangers came to the rescue, picking them up and driving them uptown, where they ultimately found a hospital.  

TARA JONES: Saint Clare’s. We were really close to Saint Clare’s, so that’s where we decided to go. They let us in. They gave us a room. They brought out cots for the kids. The hospital contacted the news, and I believe that’s how the parents found out where we were.  

TEXT ON SCREEN:
4:00 PM

NARRATION:  Supurna VedBrat’s family was searching hospitals. When she found her son at St. Clare’s, hospital staff wanted proof she was his mother. 

SUPURNA VEDBRAT: They basically said they have to make sure that the children are sent home, you know, with their parents. I think in my wildest dreams I couldn’t imagine being questioned – if I was his mother. But then finally, I’ll never forget this, she told my son, give your mom hugs and kisses, and he came, and he gave me, you know, hugs and kisses. I would say it’s about 5 o’clock in the evening when I was allowed to take him home. 

NARRATION: Teachers and staff of the Children’s Discovery Center safely evacuated all 28 infants and children and reunited them with their families. 

TARA JONES: I’m very grateful that we were able to do what we did, and that we were able to get every child out of those buildings. We had to keep them safe. Those were our babies, and I think we did everything we could have done and everything we should have done, and I would do it again if I had to.

SUPURNA VEDBRAT: These teachers didn’t need to do what they did. At any moment, this could have cost them their life. Those children, including my son, were only given a chance of survival because of the heroism that those teachers had shown that day.

ONICA SARJEANT (LOOKING AT PICTURES OF DAY CARE COVERED IN ASH): The holding hands, Children’s Discovery Center – I think that was their logo, of togetherness. We acknowledge the things and the experiences that we’ve had, and I would say that I was part of a very intense and important part of American history. It tested my abilities. It pulled things out of me that not even in theory I thought that I could do.

YAVNE’EL MONTANO: I remember my mom telling me that I used to draw pictures of buildings, a lot of pictures of planes and fire and stuff, and she was very worried. I couldn’t get it out of my head, so I drew it.

SUPURNA VEDBRAT: My son, he was 18 months. At the time, he spoke about 40 words, and then for some reason, he just wouldn’t speak. He didn’t speak for about, you know, another year and a half, and then one day he starts to sing. It took me like 30 seconds to realize, like – Oh my God, like, he’s singing, which means he’s speaking.

YAVNE’EL MONTANO: It’s 25 years since the attacks, and the age that I am now is how old she was when this happened. She’s just the bravest person that I know, honestly, and I never really got to say thank you. Thank you, Mom, for saving me.

(END)

(END)