Last Survivor of 9/11: The Incredible Story of Genelle Guzman
By: Verity Partington
Tags: Survival, 9 11 Attacks, World Trade Center, New York, History

Last Survivor of 9/11: The Incredible Story of Genelle Guzman

The Port Authority worker lay in the WTC rubble for 27 hours before rescue came. Verity Partington Follow Jun 17 · 8 min read

The wreckage of the World Trade Center after 9/11 (Image: David Mark from Pixabay)

September 11th, 2001 should have been an ordinary day at the office for 31-year-old Genelle Guzman, just like it would have been for thousands of others who worked in New York’s World Trade Center that bright morning in early fall.

A native of Trinidad and Tobago, Genelle had moved to the US in the late 1990s in the hope of landing a great job and living the American Dream.

She eventually found work as an Office Administrative Assistant for the Port Authority of New York, which meant her workplace became the 64th floor of the North Tower. That fateful day, she had signed in just as usual and grabbed a bagel from one of the building’s cafes before going to chat with her co-worker Rosa Gonzalez.

Not just another day

However, as the two women happily talked about their lives, there was a ground-shaking rumble from somewhere upstairs. Genelle said she looked out of her window to see an enormous fireball shoot past and debris start to rain down.

At first, the women and the rest of the staff on the 64th floor wondered if there might have been an earthquake. After all, what else could cause such a huge disturbance to one of the two tallest buildings in New York?

But when someone turned on a television and Genelle and her friends saw news footage of their tower with smoke billowing out of it, it soon became clear that this was no natural disaster. As the TV anchors started to suggest this might be the work of terrorists, an announcement came over the PA system urging workers not to panic and to remain in the buildings to await further instruction.

“Most of the people ignored it. They rushed toward the elevators. In minutes, the office was empty except for 15 of us who had decided to heed the announcement and stay,” Genelle told Guideposts magazine.

The small group waited nervously in an office, deliberating what to do and whether they should evacuate too, even though it went against WTC fire drills and the official advice. It was only when another shattering rumble came and the TV showed the devastating footage of another plane hitting the South Tower that Genelle and her co-workers decided now was the time to make their way to the staircase.

Too late to get out

Slowly but surely, Genelle and her colleagues began to descend from the North Tower’s 64th floor, watching the markers on the walls of each floor count their progress downwards. Genelle held hands with her close friend Rosa for moral support and they stepped aside at one point to let a band of firefighters pass on their way up.

On the 13th floor, Genelle paused to take off her uncomfortable high-heeled shoes in a bid to make the descent faster, and she let go of Rosa’s hand for just a moment. But it was at that moment that the unthinkable happened.

The building shook violently and began to collapse around the small group. Genelle saw Rosa just a few feet away get knocked down before she too was struck by a piece of falling masonry and fell face-first into the dust.

“It happened so fast: The walls burst open and the rubble came falling down,” she told Guideposts.

When the earth-shattering noise had stopped, Genelle couldn’t see any of her friends. She realised to her horror that she was trapped and pinned down in a tomb-like space within the fallen building.

“I tried to raise my hand to my temple, and it bumped against what felt like two massive concrete pillars. My head was sandwiched between them. My right leg was buried up to the thigh in rubble. My toes were numb,” Genelle recalled.

Alone in the tiny space, she started to panic. Although she ripped her head free, that was the limit of her ability to move and the situation seemed utterly hopeless. Time slipped by and Genelle would remain trapped by what remained of the World Trade Center for an astonishing 27 hours.

Genelle said she thought of her mother and wondered what she might do in her position — and realised the answer was to pray. The stricken young woman began to talk to the God she had barely even believed in before then — and hoped for a miracle.

Rescued — by an angel?

After more than a full day trapped where she had fallen when the North Tower collapsed, Genelle suddenly realised she could hear a voice. She poked her hand up through the debris and, to her disbelief, someone clasped it.

“Someone grabbed me and called me by my name and told me to keep holding his hand. He said his name was Paul and he told me to hold on because help was on the way,” she told CBA Speakers Bureau.

Although Genelle continued to fear that another collapse would bury her deeper in the rubble, Paul stayed with her until more rescuers and a search and rescue dog came.

“Each time Paul squeezed my hand, I felt peace return,” she said.

At last, dehydrated, battered, and with serious such serious damage to her leg that medics feared it would have to be amputated, Genelle was pulled from the WTC wreckage and taken to hospital. She would be the last survivor ever rescued from what became known as Ground Zero — Rosa and the rest of the group she had evacuated alongside were dead.

Genelle was taken to hospital to begin her long recovery and a news crew came to talk to her about the ordeal she had gone through. They brought some of the rescue team with them and Genelle took the opportunity to ask after Paul, the man who had kept her calm and held her hand.

She told Guideposts magazine: “One of the men looked puzzled. ‘There’s definitely no one on our team named Paul’, he said.”

Genelle was also confused and started to ask more people about the elusive Paul, keen to thank him for his kindness. However, she was unable to find him or talk to anyone who could even verify his existence on ‘the pile’ that day. Other rescuers said they hadn’t seen anyone else with Genelle when their team had arrived.

Genelle came to the conclusion that Paul had not been a human rescuer and was instead an angel sent to guide her as she went through the worst ordeal of her life. After all, how else could he have known her name and then disappeared before anyone else saw him? She wrote a book about her incredible experience called Angel in the Rubble and self-published it in 2011 as she continued her extensive physical and mental rehabilitation process.

The truth is revealed

Then, four days after Genelle’s book came out, there was a knock on the door of her Long Island home. William Croyle — the co-author of the story — explained on his website that there on the stoop was a firefighter called Tom O’Brien.

He belonged to FDNY Rescue 2 in Brooklyn and had heard about Angel in the Rubble. He explained that he had been at Ground Zero in the aftermath of 9/11 and had rescued Genelle alongside the rest of his team: Dave Arcerie, Stan Brzenski, Tom Donnelly, Bill Esposito, Larry Gray, Larry Senzel, Tony Tedeshi — and Paul Somin.

The identity of the Paul who had held Genelle’s hand and provided the comfort she so desperately needed had finally been revealed.

William said Tom spent an hour with Genelle that day ten years after her amazing rescue before he provided Paul Somin’s contact information and left. Eventually, Paul called William on the phone.

“My name is Paul. I wanted you to know that I’m real,” he said.

William said Paul explained that he had known he had been part of Genelle’s rescue party for ten years, but shied away from coming forward to reveal himself.

“That wasn’t their way. Saving her was a ‘day at the office’ for them, as Paul said to me. They wanted no recognition. But after they saw the book, they thought Genelle should know the whole story,” William wrote on his website.

As to the mystery of how Paul knew Genelle’s name, he revealed that he had been yelling into the rubble to locate anyone buried when he heard a woman’s voice call back to him from an elevator shaft. He had then asked her for her name, a fact Genelle had forgotten amid the trauma of that terrible day.

Moving on, but always remembering

For Genelle, the effects of 9/11 continue to have an impact on her life, particularly as each anniversary approaches, and she said she now struggles to believe she could have been part of the devastation she continues to see played back on television.

“I see all those moments, the back and forth of should we stay or should we go. I see my friend Rosa’s face,” she told CBA Speakers Bureau of her flashbacks.

However, despite the lasting trauma, Genelle has managed to move on to achieve more in her life. She still works for the Port Authority and married her then-boyfriend Roger McMillan. She defied doctors’ predictions to not only walk again but to have children too.

She also serves as a volunteer for the American Red Cross to pay forward some of the positivity that came her way after she suffered back in 2001, thanks to the likes of people like Paul.

“I wake up thankful every day. 9/11 will be with me forever. But I can’t stay sad. I have to lift myself and other people up,” Genelle wrote for Guideposts magazine.

The story of the last survivor to be pulled from the World Trade Center 20 years ago may therefore not be one of a supernatural angel, but it is all the more heartwarming and incredible for it.