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Posted on 09/19/2001 8:12:37 AM PDT by aomagrat

Spartanburg native Lucia Davis was seconds from death this past week when terrorists struck the World Trade Center.

And she caught it all on a video camera.

The film that shows her being pulled from the path of falling debris has made it onto national television, including NBC's "Today Show" on Monday.

Davis, 38, was filming the aftermath of the collapse of the first tower of the World Trade Center with a small personal video camera when the second tower started to fall.

An anonymous bystander pulled Davis into a juice bar called "Elixir."

"It fell so fast -- really, really fast," she said. "This huge tower of black smoke, ash and pulverized glass came rushing forward like a tidal wave," she said. But she continued to film.

"I wasn't scared. I was in shock and disbelief."

Davis thought she still had a couple of more seconds she could film when someone pulled her into the store building.

The videotape reveals the horror:

"You want to die?" a voice screams on the videotape.

"Get away from the windows!," another unidentified person yells.

"There it comes!" another person warns.

"Oh my God!, Oh my God! You saved my life. You saved my life," Davis screams hysterically at her rescuer.

Two other journalists, two employees and two other people huddled in the back of the juice bar.

"All we could see was inches and inches of ash," Davis said from her New York apartment Monday. "This glass dust got inside my pants and started to sting. There were papers scattered from every floor."

Davis is an independent filmmaker and video journalist who works for the Lifetime Network, The Learning Channel, and the History Channel. She has a bachelor's degree in psychology and religion from Princeton University, but minored in photography and received a degree in media art from the University of South Carolina. She moved to New York 11 years ago.

On Sept. 11, Davis had a meeting in uptown Manhattan when she heard an explosion.

"I heard a boom and my clock radio died," she said, explaining that she lives on Broome Street near the Holland Tunnel.

At that moment, her father, Mac Davis, a pathologist in Spartanburg, called to tell her that he saw a plane crash into the World Trade Center on television.

"I headed out with my cameras," she said. "I saw all these people looking up and I followed the action."

She recorded everything - lanes of traffic shut off, EMS vehicles speeding down streets, sidewalks full of horrified people.

"I felt compelled to record these events," she said. "I sensed this was a historic moment. I was recording people's faces and heard them screaming, and I saw one tower was just a plume of smoke," she said. "People were crying, screaming in utter shock." Davis kept heading farther south. "I remarked to someone that it would be horrifying when the smoke cleared that there would be no tower there." When she got to Chamber Street, five blocks from the World Trade Center, she saw white powder everywhere. "I was shocked to find out it was ash," she said.

She found herself surrounded by other journalists and police officers in helmets and riot gear, pouring out of armored vehicles.

"They were pushing us back and told us there was a suspicious package in the area, so we stayed on the south side of Chambers Street," she said.

Davis videotaped the nurses, doctors, police officers, firefighters and EMS walking into the site.

"I was concerned that she was in harm's way," said her father Mac Davis. "She could have been injured. But she was really there working as a journalist. I've had to learn that her job does entail some risk."

After going home to change clothes and rest, Davis got an assignment with MSNBC - NBC's all-news channel and Web site.

"I went to ground zero," she said. "I was across the street from what was the World Trade Center. It was beyond belief. It was eerie. Everyone was in shock."

People were building ramps down to a rescue center. Police officers were walking up and down the street. Firefighters were shooting water over burning ashes. There were piles of fire hoses, debris and ash.

Davis' work was used in a one-hour special Monday on MSNBC. And then Matt Lauer interviewed her Monday on the Today Show. "It was my personal story, the first 24 hours after the explosion," she said. Davis called her father Monday morning to warn him of the footage.

"I respect her judgment," he said. "She is street smart and a good judge of her own safety. She can handle herself. "But I couldn't keep my eyes off of it (the film)," he said.

This past weekend, she also shot video at ground zero of the World Trade Center explosion for MSNBC.

The video of her rescue has been played many times. And Davis said she has gotten lots of calls from childhood friends.

As for her savior, no one at the juice bar knows the man who pulled Davis to safety.

Though she is tired, Davis is still filming.

"I plan to go back out there," she said Tuesday evening.

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