September 11: A decade on transcript
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MIKE MUNRO: Dave Speck remembers September 11 dawning just like this - a blazing sunrise and blue skies. It was the day that changed the course of his life, eventually bringing him back to Australia to be here.
Dave Speck: I can get up in the morning, I can go have a swim, I can go have a surf, go work in a great city, come home and do it all again. And it's really, it's a lot, it's a much simpler life. It's just much more rewarding.
MIKE MUNRO: Dave lived right next door to the World Trade Center and was on his rooftop when he saw the second jet liner plough into the South Tower.
Dave Speck: I was standing on the balcony on the top there and the plane came in just, probably about the height of this building, or a little bit higher and just came shooting straight across over, directly overhead where I was and slammed into the tower. I can get it in my gut right now, I mean, I have just such a physical memory of the event.
(COMMOTION)
MIKE MUNRO: When you say physical, you're talking smells, what? Everything physical.
Dave Speck: I mean, you have that smell of everything that burns. I mean, you have the smell of burning concrete, steel, flesh, fabric, wood - everything that was existing the entire construct was just on fire and incinerating at the time.
MIKE MUNRO: You make it sound like hell itself.
Dave Speck: It truly was.
Marcy Borders: At first, I thought we were at war.
MIKE MUNRO: This photograph of Marcy Borders became one of the most haunting images of the 2001 attacks. She was working for the Bank of America on the 81st floor of the North Tower which was the second to fall, the first hit.
Marcy Borders: We had some injured in the office. We had people injured, you know, people just screaming, going crazy.
MIKE MUNRO: As the building burned, Marcy's boss told everyone to stay put, but not Marcy - she ignored him, heading straight for the stairs.
Marcy Borders: To me, the building was under pressure. You know, I started seeing cracks in the wall, I was smelling gas. I don't know if I was just...The building was under pressure, to me, so I knew I needed to get out of there.
MIKE MUNRO: And how close was the South Tower to you here?
Dave Speck: Where that blue fencing is is pretty much the beginning of the World Trade Center facility.
MIKE MUNRO: It's only 100m or so.
Dave Speck: Yeah, about 100m, 150m or so.
Marcy Borders: The second tower came down just three minutes after I got out. Like, I was being put into the ambulance. They were going to take me
to the hospital. Then you just heard firemen running, saying, "Run and don't look back".
MAN: Jesus!
MIKE MUNRO: And what did you feel and see during these moments?
Marcy Borders: Oh, my God. When you see firemen, police, the army, the world, running, you just know it's the end.
MAN: Go! Move! Get down! Go! Let's go!
MIKE MUNRO: So once you were out here, what did you see?
Dave Speck: Body parts everywhere. There was, I mean, half a torso of a cop, lower torso of a cop was sitting right there, I mean, easily identifiable.
MIKE MUNRO: Right here?
Dave Speck: Yeah, right here.
Dave Speck: Just, I mean, bits and pieces of human flesh everywhere.
MIKE MUNRO: So, you were..?
Dave Speck: You go over here and step across the carnage, then I just remember coming out in the street, kind of get my bearings, you know, take a breath and figure out where I was going to go from here. I would have nightmares for, you know, a couple of years. Especially thinking of the jumpers - I mean, that's the thing that just stuck with me for the longest time, just watching these people jump off the top of the building. Just visualising - when you feel the death of all these thousands of people, it, again, it sits inside of you and I had just really deep, dark, just feeling of emptiness in my heart and this sense of sorrow that was just so intense, for so many people had gone right in front of me.
MIKE MUNRO: When you see this, what do you think when you see that?
Marcy Borders: Um...Oh, I see a poor soul that just doesn't know what to do. Like, the look of fear is just, like, embedded in this person.
MIKE MUNRO: Dave Speck didn't even know it, but for five hard years, he suffered post traumatic stress.
Dave Speck: I was very edgy. There was no sort of gradual building up of stress - I was either calm or I was just panicked.
Marcy Borders: Went into like a manic depression. Drinking went into weeks, weeks went into months, months went into years then that wasn't good enough. Then I just started drugs, doing drugs that I never imagined myself doing. Cocaine, crack. I didn't want to live. I didn't have anything to live for.
MIKE MUNRO: Today, Marcy is well into recovery. And you're a very different person today?
Marcy Borders: Um, yes. Like, you know, going from a victim to a survivor and when I see that, I mean, like, victory is mine now.
MIKE MUNRO: In 2005, Dave Speck packed his bags and left New York for good.
Dave Speck: I am never going back. Are you kidding me?
MIKE MUNRO: He came to Australia, settled in Sydney and let the sun, sand and surf heal him.
Dave Speck: One of the decisions I made that really, really helped me get through this was I was only going to do things that I loved to do. I was going to live where I wanted to live, I was going to do the things I wanted to do. Australia gave me my life back and, I mean, I am so grateful for that.
MIKE MUNRO: Dave, welcome back.
Dave Speck: Oh, thank you.
Lauren Grandcolas: Honey, are you there? Zack? Pick up, sweetie. OK, well, I just wanted to tell you I love you.
It's heart-wrenching. It's her last goodbye.
Lauren Grandcolas: We are having a real problem on the plane. I'm totally fine. I just love you more than anything - just know that and, you know, I'm comfortable and I'm OK, for now.
Jack Grandcolas: Lauren was feisty, spunky, friendly, very outgoing and giving. Loving to the end. When you saw Lauren, you couldn't help but feel like there was something special about her.
MIKE MUNRO: On September 11, Lauren Grandcolas was returning home to San Francisco after attending her grandmother's funeral outside New York. Lauren was 38 and three months pregnant with their first child.
Jack Grandcolas: She wasn't a big fan of flying and what was odd about her being on Flight 93 was that she always got to an airport late, not early and on September 11, she got to the airport so early that she was able to get on the earlier flight which was United Flight 93.
Lauren Grandcolas: Hey I just wanted to let you know I'm on the 8 o'clock
instead of the 9:20 so I'll get to San Francisco at about 11:00 and I'll be at the ferry terminal probably a little before 12:00. OK? I'll call you then. Bye.
MIKE MUNRO: At 9:28am, four hijackers took control of Flight 93 and turned it towards Washington. 11 minutes later, Lauren called her husband.
Lauren Grandcolas: Um, there's a little problem, so, I'll, uh, I just love you. Please tell my family I love them too. Goodbye, honey.
Jack Grandcolas: There wasn't any sound in the background, there was no screaming. It's calm, it's cool, it's collected. They were planning what they needed to do to try to wrestle back control of the plane.
MIKE MUNRO: 29 minutes after that, the passengers on Flight 93 stormed the cockpit, stopping the hijackers flying to their Washington target -
either the White House or the Capitol. Six minutes later, the jet plunged into an empty field in Pennsylvania.
Jack Grandcolas: The strength I take from the message from the plane was that don't let them get you too, almost as if she knew it was going to be harder for those left behind and I think she was cognisant that hers was going to be a quick death where ours would be stuck with this for the rest of our lives.
MIKE MUNRO: So, this is a pretty special spot for you here?
Rachel Uchitel: Yeah - it was here that Andy proposed to me. He rented a boat here and, uh, we took the boat out and we rode off into this cove over here, and finally he said, "Can you just sit still for a second so I can tell you something?" and we ended up, I sat still and he told me how much I meant to him and got on one knee and, and proposed to me.
MIKE MUNRO: And then, within the month, he was gone?
Rachel Uchitel: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we literally got engaged and 30 days later, he was dead.
MIKE MUNRO: Andy O'Grady was working in the South Tower on September 11 and in the days following, his fiancee, Rachel Uchitel, hoped against hope that he was still alive.
Rachel Uchitel: It's taken me my entire life to find him and I don't know
what I will do without him. Please, please help me find him.
MIKE MUNRO: At first, how confident were you that he would be found?
Rachel Uchitel Well, I couldn't imagine that this would be my life, you know. I couldn't imagine that I would be practically widowed, you know. I couldn't imagine that I had just woken up that morning next to this person, and, you know, and his clothes that he slept in were on the floor in the bathroom and his pillow, you know, it still had the shape from his head. It didn't make sense to me that, that he would, you know, that he was dead. It's hard, you know, when you have a regret of how you said goodbye to somebody. Um, Andy went in to work later than I did. I had the 5am shift at Bloomberg. He was sitting on the couch watching the Weather Channel when I left, about 4:50 in the morning and he said, "Hey, babe,
come give me a kiss goodbye". And, I said, "I have lipstick on. I'll kiss you tonight".
Emergency help line: PHONE: 087581168. I have a caller on the line for the World Trade Center.
Emergency help line: OK, we have everybody going there, OK?
MIKE MUNRO: On the day, how many friends or friends of friends did you lose?
Bob Beckwith: There was about nine guys that I personally knew whose sons were in there and, of course, a couple of chiefs that, were, that I knew.
MIKE MUNRO: How many recovered?
Bob Beckwith: None.
MIKE MUNRO: None at all?
Bob Beckwith: None. No. Bad run - 243 firemen in one day. Yeah, that was tough. That was tough.
MIKE MUNRO: It didn't matter that firefighter Bob Beckwith was retired.
As soon as he could, the 69-year-old was at Ground Zero helping with the rescue.
Bob Beckwith: I had heard that people survived seven days later underground. I figured "these guys have got to find air pockets".
MIKE MUNRO: Bob was asked to make sure if it was safe for an unknown VIP
to stand on a wrecked fire truck. And then you saw who?
Bob Beckwith: And then I saw, coming around the left, was the President.
He puts his arm up, so I pull him up on the rig, I turn him around, I say, "Are you OK, Mr President?" He said, "Yes". I start to get down. He said, "Where you going?" I said, "I was told to get down". He said, "No, no - you stay right here".
MIKE MUNRO: And put his arm around you?
Bob Beckwith: Put his arm around me.
George BUsh: I want you all to know this nation stands with the good people of New York City.
Bob Beckwith: And then they started to chant, "We can't hear you".
George Bush: I can hear you.
(LAUGHTER AND CHEERING)
George Bush: I can hear you, the rest of the world hears you...
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
..and the people, and the people who knocked these buildings down
will hear all of us soon.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
MIKE MUNRO: This is the first time Bob has seen this history-making moment in its entirety.
ALL (CHANT): USA! USA!
George Bush: The nation, the nation sends its love. Thank you for your hard work, thank you for making the nation proud. and may God bless America.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
Bob Beckwith: You see the flag he's waving there when he's coming down?
MIKE MUNRO: Yep.
Bob Beckwith: That's it, right there.
MIKE MUNRO: That's the same flag?
Bob Beckwith: That's the same flag. Yep. A Secret Service guy tapped me on the shoulder and he said, "the President wants you to have this".
MIKE MUNRO: Is that right?
Bob Beckwith: I said, "thank you".
MIKE MUNRO: And your reaction to the assassination of Osama bin Laden?
Bob Beckwith: Great. Great move.
MIKE MUNRO: And do you think it gives the families closure?
Bob Beckwith: I don't like that word, "closure", I never did. I don't want to know closure. There's no such a thing as closure. You lost your kids, you lost your husband, you lost your wife - what's this closure? No, you're never going to, we're never going to forget and they're never going to get it, so there's no closure. Amen.
