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To: jjsheridan5
The account is from the book September 11th: An oral history, and it's the testimony of an EMT named Ernest Armstead, titled "Tormented by conversions with death." Reproduced below:

"....I ran towards them, my triage tags in hand. There was a man having a seizure and his eyes were rolling into the back of his head. He had struck the pavement so hard that there was virturally nothing else left of him. There were a couple others that I never got to, but I could see from a short distance that they were dead. And then there was the lady with the nice hairdo and earrings.

When I got to her, I ripped out a black tag. What impressed me - and scared me - was that she was alert and was watching what I was doing. I put the tag around her neck and she looked at me and said, "I am not dead. Call my daughter. I am not dead." I was so startled that for a split second I was speechless. "Ma'am," I said. "don't worry about it, We will be right back for you." That was a lie. She couldn't see what I could see. Somehow, I guess it was an air draft or something, her fall had been cushioned enough so that she didn't splatter like the others. Still her body was so twisted and torn apart that I could only ask myself, Why is this lady still alive and talking to me? How can this be? Her right lung, shoulder and head were intacted, but from the diaphragm down she was unrecognizable. Yet she was lucid enough that she continued to argue with me."I am not dead," she insisted again.

....but another wave of casualties arrived in the lobby from upstairs, so I needed to return. As I headed back, I stepped over the lady one more time. And as eerie and unsettling as our first encounter had been, the second was even worse. She yelled at me.

"I am not dead! I am not dead!"

"They're coming, they're coming." I replied without stopping.

"I am not dead! I am not dead!"

196 posted on 09/10/2011 12:38:27 AM PDT by denydenydeny (The moment you step into a world of facts, you step into a world of limits. --Chesterton)
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To: denydenydeny

Dear Lord....I never thought any would survive impact....just awful....may they all find God’s mercy


262 posted on 09/11/2011 9:49:22 AM PDT by PigRigger (Donate to http://www.AdoptAPlatoon.org - The Troops have our front covered, let's guard their backs!)
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