CAMDEN COUNTY – The last survivor rescued from Ground Zero shared her powerful testimony during a 9/11 commemoration at Camden County College.
What they’re saying:
Genelle Guzman-McMillan, 54, was working on the 64th floor of the World Trade Center North Tower on September 11, 2001.
“The last thing I did, I made one more phone call to my boyfriend. I didn’t get him, so I left a message and I told him that I love him,” said Guzman-McMillan.
Guzman-McMillan began evacuating down the stairwell after the South Tower started collapsing, but she and her co-workers would only make it down to the 13th floor stairwell before the North Tower came crashing down on them.
“The walls burst and the rumbling everything come crashing down knocked me to the floor,” said Guzman-McMillan. “Everything just keeps tumbling harder and harder, and all the dust, the darkness, I couldn’t see nothing.”
Guzman-McMillan was trapped under the debris for 27 hours.
She describes the excruciating pain, the darkness and the moment she was ready to give up but said a miracle came her way during this life or death moment.
“Miraculous thing happened. My right hand being there, 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,” said Guzman-McMillan. “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.”
Shortly after, Guzman-McMillan said she was finally rescued when first responders located her and pulled her out from the disaster zone.
Guzman-McMillan said she was in the hospital for three months and received surgery on her right leg four times. Her legs were crushed from the impact. It would take her more than a year to re-learn how to walk.
“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,” said Ginny Magee, an instruction designer at Camden County College.
In 2010, Guzman-McMillan wrote a memoir titled “Angel in the Rubble” and continues to engage in speaking events to encourage others to live with purpose.
“I wasn’t fearful at all after,” said Guzman-McMillan. “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, and I wanted to share the story.”
Guzman-McMillan continues to work at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
She is happily married to her boyfriend and they have three beautiful daughters.
NewsSeptember 11
