Thunder Dog

by Michael Hingson

  I take care of Roselle first. I pull off her harness and try to give her a good brushing to remove as much of the dust and debris as I can, but for once she won’t stand still. She runs off like she’s on a mission and comes back in a few minutes with her prized Booda Bone, a braided rope with a big knot on each end. Roselle prances around with the rope bone in her mouth and Linnie trailing behind, hoping for a game of tug-of-war.

  I think over the day’s events. From the initial explosion and tower leaning, to the stairwell descent, the mad flight from the collapsing tower, the trek through the dust cloud, the discovery of the subway station, the long walk through Manhattan, and the journey home, it has been a very long day. And while I am spent, Roselle seems to have recovered already. And she hasn’t even been outside yet.

  Later, in the shower, I relax as the hot water washes away the dust and the sweat. I am alive. Roselle and I made it.

  Karen orders moo shu pork, General Tso’s chicken, and egg rolls from our favorite Chinese takeout. When the food arrives, Karen, Tom, and I enjoy a quiet meal. The television murmurs in the background as the media rehashes the day, but our focus is on each other. There were several times during the day when I thought I would never see Karen again. But here we are, safe and together. And much of the credit goes to Roselle.

  My body begins to tingle with fatigue, and I head upstairs to bed. Roselle takes her place on the floor next to my side of the bed. She sleeps peacefully. The storm is over.

  After September 11, everything changed. Thousands perished. For some reason Roselle and I survived.

  When I woke up the next morning, my emotions were numb, but my body was not. I could barely move. Every muscle ached, and I was so stiff it took me ten minutes to get out of bed. I released Roselle and Linnie from their tie-downs, and they began bouncing around the room, winding themselves up for a game of chase. I moaned and groaned as I pulled on my robe and tied the belt, then bit my tongue so I didn’t wake up Karen.

  Even my hands were sore. I shuffled across the room and down the hall, the dogs running ahead. Each step was agony. My calves, thighs, and hips screamed in protest. I thought back to the long, long stairwell. No marching briskly down seventy-eight flights of stairs for me today. I would have a hard time making it down.

  I took Karen’s elevator downstairs to let the dogs out then limped around the kitchen and put on some hot water for a cup of PG tips. I was spreading butter on a toasted English muffin when it hit me. There’s no more office to go back to.

  I stopped, holding the knife over the muffin, and memories of the day before began to rush back, replaying in my head. I again heard the noise of the towers falling, the frightened screams, and the breaking glass. I shook my head, trying to clear it out. Enough.

  I tightened my grip on the knife and turned my attention back to the muffin. There would be time later to think through everything that had happened. For now, I just wanted to enjoy my breakfast. And I did. It was delicious. In fact, I think it was the best meal I ever had.

  Karen and I spent the day resting, fielding calls from friends and family, and consulting my doctor and Roselle’s vet. I started on a course of antibiotics to forestall any looming respiratory issues from having inhaled dust and fumes. There were already reports about toxins in the dust cloud, including asbestos. Roselle’s vet advised no special treatment for her, just rest and routine.

  I also gave Guide Dogs for the Blind a call to let them know Roselle and I were okay. I asked them how to take care of Roselle. Was there anything I needed to do to help her recover from working through such a catastrophic experience?

  “Dogs live in the moment,” they reminded me, explaining that Labrador retrievers are so adaptable that they generally bounce back from traumatic events quickly with no lingering ill effects. And as Roselle romped around with Linnie, I detected no soreness or fatigue. If only I could say the same.

  The realization reassured me. If Roselle’s mind and emotions recovered as quickly as her body, then she was in good shape. There didn’t seem to be any fear or timidity in her. She didn’t act shell-shocked at all. I don’t think she was reliving the sights and sounds of yesterday. She was much more interested in where Linnie hid the Booda Bone.

  E-mail Message from Guide Dogs for the Blind

  From: Betsy Irving

  Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 12:22 p.m.

  To: All Guide Dogs for the Blind Employees (all sites)

  Subject: World Trade Center

  We, in the Puppy Raising Department at Guide Dogs for the Blind, thought you would want to know this story. Thank you again for raising an outstanding guide.

  I received a call from graduate Michael Hingson with Roselle, Yellow Lab, Class #606. He was in the World Trade Center yesterday in the Number One tower on the 78th floor when the first plane hit. Luckily, the plane hit the other side of the building. He and Roselle walked down 78 floors to get out of the building. He, along with his staff and many others, met firefighters going up. Shortly after they exited the building, the Number Two tower collapsed, so they were moving quickly down the street to get out of the way of the debris. He made it home last night about 7 p.m. after staying with a friend in mid-Manhattan until the trains were running again. He said Roselle was a trooper through the whole ordeal!

  It was a quiet morning. When Karen came downstairs, she mentioned that outside she could see the smoke rising from the site of the World Trade Center, twenty miles away.

  We were glued to the TV for most of the day. Reporters covered the ongoing search for survivors in the rubble, along with the national effort to secure likely terrorist targets, such as airports, power plants, government buildings, and bridges. We watched footage of firefighters, police officers, and Port Authority employees in shock and grieving their losses. Thousands of New Yorkers were out posting pictures of their missing loved ones in the public areas of Manhattan in hopes that someone, somewhere, could help them find the lost.

  In the afternoon, I got a call that surprised me. Joanne Ritter at Guide Dogs for the Blind wanted to put some feelers out to the media. She wanted to know if I was willing to be interviewed. I agreed, not thinking much of it. Then she asked, “If you could talk to the host of any television show, who would it be?” Without thinking, I mentioned Larry King.

  The next day Joanne called back and said Larry’s people would be calling. Friday night, Roselle and I were in the Green Room at CNN’s New York studios with Karen and Tom Painter. I felt more than a little overwhelmed. Monday had been a normal workday. Tuesday had been hell. Wednesday and Thursday I was exhausted and in shock. And here it was Friday, and I was about to tell my story to Larry King and his millions of viewers around the world.

  E-mail Message from Roselle’s Puppy Raisers

  From: Kay and Ted Stern

  Sent: Friday, September 14, 2001

  To: Michael Hingson

  Subject: Thank God

  We just heard from Guide Dogs for the Blind that you and Roselle are safe and that you both had a truly harrowing escape from your World Trade Center offices. We are so thankful and proud of you two partners to be able to work together and survive under the most testing of circumstances. We had sent you an email immediately after the attack and not hearing a response were very concerned. We are so relieved that you both are okay. Amidst the sadness we all have much for which to be grateful. We are sitting here embracing our nine-week-old service dog puppy that we are raising for Canine Companions for Independence and we all send you, your wife, and Roselle puppy kisses and hugs.

  Fondly, Kay and Ted

  If I had been thinking, I’m not sure I would have been so quick to respond to Joanne’s question on Wednesday. But my experience with Larry King was a positive one. As always, he was warm and encouraging, engaging me in a conversational give-and-take that highlighted my blindness and Roselle’s role in our escape from the tower. Afterward, I was glad I shared my story. Most of Tuesday’s news was both grim and disheartening; if my
experience could serve as a bright interlude in an otherwise dark and desperate day, I was grateful and willing to do it. Our country needed hope and healing. So did I.

  New York shut down for a few days. While the rest of the world experienced the events surrounding September 11 through the confines of a television screen, the attacks and the catastrophic consequences had taken place in our backyard. Everyone knew people who had died in the towers. Their untimely deaths caused shock waves that stretched out far beyond Manhattan and the surrounding bedroom communities. Then the funerals started. Some New Yorkers were attending four or five funerals a day.

  The choice to move on wasn’t even a remote possibility during the weeks after. Reminders were all around us. One poignant story came from a reporter who noted the large number of cars left sitting at suburban train stations around New York. Over the next few days, those cars stayed, abandoned and gathering dust. In many cases the owners would never return.

  During the days and weeks after, my body recovered. I was able to sleep okay, and I resumed my daily routines. But it was not the same with my heart and my spirit. There was no more normal. First and foremost, I mourned the loss of life and the tragedy of the many rescuers who had bravely stayed in the towers, doing their jobs even as the buildings collapsed. I thought often of the firefighters who passed us on the stairwell, the man who delivered the ham-and-cheese croissants that morning, and the two women who had been so badly burned. I wondered about the people on the floors above us in Tower 1, the people I rode the elevator with every day but didn’t know by name. Who among them lived? And who did not? I would probably never know.

  I did get some good news, though. I was relieved to find out that all six Ingram Micro employees who had been in our offices that day made it out safely. And no Quantum employees were lost.

  I was angry at the men who did this to us. Their twisted minds and motives are beyond my comprehension. I almost felt as though this group of nineteen people could not have been human; otherwise how could they have planned and carried out such an attack, resulting in deaths and grievous injuries to thousands of innocent people? I could not understand it. I still don’t.

  Friends and family often asked if I had survivor’s remorse. I did not. I think it’s because there is no real answer to why Roselle and I survived when so many others did not. Traveling down that path, even briefly, led to an endless chain of what-ifs. What if the plane had hit the 78th floor of our building, like in the South Tower? What if David and I had remained longer in our offices, working to power down the computer servers? What if I had waited for help with evacuation? What if we had tried to get to David’s car in the parking lot right across the street from Tower 2? What if the South Tower had collapsed in a different direction? What if a piece of glass or metal had hit one of us?

  My mind explored these questions and many others, but I soon gave it up. I don’t have the answers. I’m not sure why I lived. But I do know this: since I am alive, I must be here for a reason. I agree with Billy Graham, who spoke during the national prayer service at Washington National Cathedral on the Friday after the attacks. He said that we may never know why 9/11 happened, but we don’t have to, because God is the sovereign One. He uses each of us in different ways, and I choose to trust that he used me that day. I know he used Roselle. The two of us interacted with so many others; some I remember and some I’ve forgotten. I don’t know exactly what will come out of the part we played in September 11. I may never know. But I do know it’s all about planting seeds, seeds of forgiveness, healing, teamwork, and trust.

  After the Larry King interview, I began to get other requests. One of the major weekly newsmagazines contacted me and wanted to do an interview at their offices. They asked me to show up in the clothes I was wearing on September 11. But the clothes had already been sent to the cleaners; in addition, the whole idea seemed tacky and sensationalized. I decided not to do the interview.

  When invited, I did begin to tell the story and there seemed to be quite a bit of interest. Along with the television, radio, and print media requests came invitations to speak to groups in person. At first I was hesitant, and I wasn’t sure what I had to offer. I walked down a bunch of stairs to get out of the tower. So what? Walking down the stairs shouldn’t be viewed as incredible or heroic. But I began to see that there might be value in talking about some of the things I learned growing up blind that went a long way toward helping me survive that day. And people listened.

  Within a few days, I started working back at my Quantum job again, first at home, then in rented offices in New Jersey. But my relationship with the company soured quickly. As sales manager, I was castigated for the drop in sales. Somehow the powers that be did not understand the working situation in New York. Many of my best clients were busy attending funerals, not purchasing computer backup systems. As a city and a region, we were struggling to get back on our feet and find a new normal. It was going to take a while. But the pressure was on to focus on getting sales, and there seemed to be a suspicion from corporate that we weren’t out doing our job. Even so, I exceeded both the third quarter and fourth quarter sales goals. However, the message from corporate was that not enough was being sold in the Mid-Atlantic region for their satisfaction. My media interviews didn’t help matters. It was an extremely difficult time for me and for Karen. Both of us had been through a traumatic experience that we were still struggling to make sense of, and we lived and worked in a community that was still living out the aftereffects of the worst terrorist attack ever on American soil. The pressure I felt was tremendous; I have always taken my work very seriously, and I have always been harder on myself than on anyone else. But this time it was different. My priorities had shifted, and with the continued requests for interviews and speeches, I was beginning to get a glimpse of what my larger purpose might be.

  Not long after, I got an offer from Bob Phillips, CEO of Guide Dogs for the Blind, to serve as spokesperson out of the campus in San Rafael, California. It was the very same place I went at age fourteen to meet my first guide dog, Squire. It was also the same school that trained Roselle. We took time to make our decision. Going from urban New York City to the lush green and gold hills of the Marin Peninsula on the other side of the country would be a huge change of pace. Taking the offer would also mean giving up my six-figure regional sales manager’s salary. But I had changed. We had changed. The money and the demands and pressures of my high-powered job didn’t seem as important as before. So Karen and I decided to take the offer. It was time to move back to California.

  I worked for Guide Dogs for the Blind for six and a half years and had a wonderful time. From my office on the campus in San Rafael (with my “Dog Is My Co-pilot” poster) to the amazing people I had the privilege to work with, including Roselle’s trainer, Todd Jurek, my term at Guide Dogs was one of the highlights of my life. Being part of an organization that gives people back their confidence and their mobility through a partnership with a guide dog is a satisfying way to make a living.

  The requests for interviews and speeches continued to grow, and eventually I resigned from Guide Dogs and went on the road full-time, speaking to thousands of people every year. I will never get tired of telling my story as long as it helps people. And I will never get tired of answering questions. (Here’s one of my favorites from a grade schooler: “How do blind people have sex?” Answer: “They same way sighted people do.”)

  Roselle went everywhere with me until she retired in 2007 at a public ceremony at Guide Dogs. They also retired her name; no future guide dog will ever be named Roselle. Over the years she’s been showered with awards for her role in 9/11: the Heroes of Hartz award from Hartz Mountain Corporation, including a donation of twenty thousand dollars to Guide Dogs for the Blind; a British award called the PDSA Dickin medal, recognized worldwide as “the animals’ Victoria Cross” and given to animals that display conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty; the American Kennel Club’s (AKC) ACE Award for Canine Excellence; and sp
ecial recognition from Guide Dogs for the Blind upon retirement for “displaying exemplary courage, steadfastness, and partnership in learning.” In addition, Roselle’s name was read into the National Congressional Record in recognition for her service.

  I’ve stayed close friends with Kay and Ted Stern, who were Roselle’s puppy raisers. They took her home from Guide Dogs when she was just four months old and kept her for ten months of basic training. As you can imagine, they are very proud. “She is just a steady girl,” said Ted Stern in an interview.

  One of the questions I get asked often is how Roselle was able to ignore what was happening around us at the WTC to concentrate on guiding. While our close bond and our teamwork played a part, Roselle’s trainer, Todd Jurek, said there is no way to prepare a dog to guide through a life-and-death situation like Roselle encountered on September 11. While Roselle’s abilities are in part due to a combination of good breeding and good training, “she is a very special dog,” said Jurek. “Most dogs in that situation would have flipped out, and that’s the truth. She is just a pretty amazing dog to be able to guide you calmly down the stairs with all that commotion happening. People ask me, ‘How did you train that dog to do that?’ I just put her through the training, and the rest was her will and her strong temperament. Roselle was fun, outgoing, and loved to play, but ultimately she was always a good worker and serious in her work.”

  When she was still guiding for me, Roselle developed a serious health issue called immune-mediated thrombocytopenia (IMT), a blood disorder characterized by the destruction of blood platelets due to the presence of antiplatelet autoantibodies. The condition is an immune system disorder, most likely related to her exposure to the environmental toxins and irritants she inhaled in the midst of that tremendous dust cloud from the collapsing towers. We kept her on medication while she was still guiding to control the condition, but when her blood tests began to indicate changing kidney values, we decided to retire her. It was a very hard decision, but we had known the time was coming. Guiding is stressful both physiologically and psychologically, and we wanted Roselle to live a long and healthy life. After she retired, her kidney values went back into the normal range, and we continue to keep her on steroids, to stimulate blood platelet growth, and cyclosporin, an immune system suppressant.