'Last survivor' of 9/11 recalls the 'miracle moment' that saved her after being trapped for 27 hours
On the morning of 11 September, 2001, Genelle Guzman-McMillan made it to the 13th floor stairwell of the World Trade Centre's north tower before she was forever changed.
Now a mother to three daughters, the 54-year-old provided a powerful recollection during a Ground Zero memorial event at Camden County College this week (per Fox29).
By the time she was discovered by rescue workers at the horrific site 25 years ago, Guzman-McMillan had somehow hung on for 27 hours.
"The last thing I did, I made one more phonecall to my boyfriend. I didn’t get [hold of] him, so I left a message and I told him that I love him," she told the campus crowd.
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"The walls burst and the rumbling everything come crashing down knocked me to the floor. Everything just keeps tumbling harder and harder, and all the dust, the darkness, I couldn't see nothing."
According to the 'last survivor' to be pulled from the wreckage, she encountered something 'miraculous' while the world burned around her.
"Someone grabbed me by my hands and they called me by my name, and they told me his name. He said, 'Genelle I got you. My name is Paul'.
"I don't know if it's a firefighter or if it's an angel person, but I've been looking for that person, Paul, who was holding my hand for the past 24 years," she continued.
Shortly after this hallucination, which kept her conscious and therefore fighting for survival, Guzman-McMillan was safely removed from the rubble by first responders.
"I wasn't fearful at all after. I knew I was here for a reason. I knew I was saved for a reason, and I knew there was a plan and a purpose in my life."
Her legs were crushed during the terrorist attack, resulting in four operations and three months' worth of hospitalisation. Guzman-McMillan had to learn how to walk again during this period.
At the same Camden College College event, instruction designer Ginny Magee commented: "To hear it turned her life around instead of it being something that impacted her in a negative way and made her someone fearful, but instead it really inspired her to change her life, to me, that was the biggest takeaway that I had from this."
The anniversary of 9/11 always brings new stories and perspectives to the surface, and the final phonecall between fallen hero Rick Rescorla and his wife Susan is one of them this time.
Selflessly and tragically, Rescorla chose to help thousands of south tower workers that day, putting his own life on the line.
Dan Seddon