[Seven seperate cases of] Men Missing Since 9/11 Found Alive

NEW YORK (AP) - Two men listed for months as missing in the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center have been discovered alive in area hospitals, city officials said Tuesday.

In addition, the city medical examiner's office said a revised list of the missing and dead is expected to reflect at least five similar cases when it is released next week.

"Tell everyone I'm alive and in good health," said Albert Vaughan, 45, when reached by telephone Tuesday at the Rockland Psychiatric Center in Orangeburg, where he has been a patient.

Vaughan has been removed from the city's official list of people missing after the attack, said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the city medical examiner. She said another man, George Sims of Newark, N.J., whose family recently learned he was alive and in a New York hospital, has also been removed from the list released last week.

Borakove said investigators have found at least five other people on the city's missing list who are alive, but she would not provide any information about them.

Vaughan's sister, Claudia Benjamin, said her family notified authorities shortly after Sept. 11 about her brother's disappearance. She said he had been homeless for years before the terrorist attack and had been living in subway stations.

The last time anyone in her family had seen him was in the subway station below the World Trade Center about a month before Sept. 11, Benjamin said.

"My daughters go to work about 8 in the morning and they'd always say, 'Mom, I saw Albert,'" Benjamin said. "But after the World Trade Center thing, they didn't see him no more."

Benjamin said officials at a New York hospital told her family about two months ago that her brother was alive and in the hospital's custody. He was later transferred to the psychiatric hospital in Rockland County.

Vaughan said he had no recollection of the morning of Sept. 11 and did not seem aware that his family had feared he was dead.

Sims, of Newark, N.J., was found alive in an undisclosed hospital, his family said. His mother, Anna Sims, said her son may be suffering from amnesia, though he remembered his birthdate and enough of his Social Security ( news - web sites) number for authorities to contact the family earlier this month.

"He doesn't even know where he's at," Sims said. "He calls me 'Mrs. Sims.' He doesn't even know me as 'my mother.'"

She said the family reported him missing Oct. 7 after hearing he might have been near the twin towers.

Borakove said Sims was removed from the official list after the New York Police Department advised the medical examiner's office on Aug. 20 that Sims was alive.

The city last week released its list of 2,819 people killed or missing in the terrorist attack, including Sims and Vaughn.

Associated Press Writer Jeffrey Gold in Newark, N.J., contributed to this report.

The outpouring from American Citizens was more than sufficient to take care of the people affected. There were some bumps in the road such as the various charities wanting to use all that money for purposes other than what it was donated for, slow payouts and needs based qualifications. The people gave that money to the survivors without condition and it was nice to see the groundswell of anger when O’Rielly and others brought these things to light. It definitely would have gone the charities way which was more in their favor than the survivors.

When the Government got involved it was for two purposes; one was to protect the airlines from mega lawsuits and two was to buy votes from the public. I have a major problem with this. I don’t feel that the government needed to protect the airlines in this way. They had insurance and probably would have settled out of court with most of the people in a class action suite. The Government could have at that time granted or loaned money to the airlines if they thought it was needed and in the national interest.

As for the survivors, many of the dead were providers for upper-middle to upper class families. This does not mean that the Widows and Orphans were on easy street when they suddenly lost 6 and 7 figure income streams. As I mentioned before, I personally knew and worked with several of the people who died. All of the ones I knew personally were outstanding fathers and citizens. Most of them planned to provide for their families in the of the unexpected (and being incinerated in a high-rise was definitely that). Of the four I knew who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald, they all were supposed to receive double their annual income in Employer provided life insurance. The only problem was that the corporate policy had a lifetime cap on it. Because of this, they only were going to get payouts of around $35,000. This was hardly enough to support most of them and their families for the period it would take them to get back onto their feet.

The city and State helped by providing quick death certificates for the families, but it was still almost impossible to get money from insurance companies for at least 4 to 6 months. By the time they got the money it would already have been spent. The others I knew who did not provide too well for their families were both in their late 20’s and between them had four children. I know that almost everyone I knew in there 20’s did not have much in the way of savings, investments or equity in there homes. These “Kids” families were literally on their own. If it weren’t for the fact that the in-laws stepped up to the plate they would have been on the street within a few months. Not everyone is capable or prescient enough to be prepared for death.

The impact on families, community and the nation has been huge. In the last year I saw more funerals than I expected to see in my lifetime (just last week was another memorial service for a local family who never received a body), My children had to miss school and basketball was canceled because there were so many funerals at our parish that they needed the school and gymnasium for overflow services. Over a million square feet of fully rented office space downtown is gone. Not only has this closed many businesses, but the ones that remained open have mostly relocated. Downtown near Wall Street (which had been on a major comeback) is now almost a ghost town. The economic impact on the city is huge. Just the lost revenue stream form the dead workers alone are already in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Finally, we still have about 10,000 unidentified body parts in refrigerated trailers at the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island.

The was originaly a reply to a private email from another person on this thread. I wasn't going to post it to this thread, but I’m really getting tired of people blaming the victims for the money they are jealous of. These people have suffered like I hope you or I never have to. Other than the few who have gone public or been manipulated by the media most are still at home trying to cope with their loses. I refuse to be bitter because of monies they are receiving that the vast majority never asked for, an will never replace their losses.

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