From tragedy to celebration: 9/11 survivor reflects on son born on anniversary

NEW YORK - After 25 years, many survivors are returning to Ground Zero to wrestle with what happened.

What they're saying:

Derek Difani was inside Tower 2 on his second day of a three-week training session. After the plane hit the building, he did not think he would live. His family was losing hope, too.

"I don't know, it's hard to describe the feeling, actually. Really is," Difani said. "It's just so incredible to see it here now, and I'm wondering why it's taken me this long to come back. I don't know if there's something to that. I think about what, you know, the chances that it could have been you just being here coming to visit to come see my name, which is kind of a wild thing to think about. And then so many people here that died saving other people, including myself, is, you know, these are all the heroes of 9/11, right?"

Reflecting at the memorial fountains, he noted a profound sense of closure.

"I think there is a level of closure here that's really kind of profound and not something I would have thought I would be thinking about until now," Difani said.

His story is one of survival, even when others believed he would not make it. Difani’s brother is FOX 10 Phoenix Reporter Steve Nielsen. During a conversation about the tragedy, Nielsen said he believed Derek was dead.

"I believed I was going to be," Difani said.

"To see these names here and to know that there is an alternate world where I'm coming up here and leaving a rose on the cutout of your name, and we were very close to that being my reality and not having you be a part of my life for the last 25 years," Nielsen said.

"That's crazy," Difani said.

Twenty-five years ago, the World Trade Center looked very different. It was the center of the world, with two towers that stood above everything else. It was especially impressive to a wide-eyed 25-year-old attending a three-week training session at Morgan Stanley.

"When you walk up and see the towers, there's really nothing like it. Each floor is an acre. 110 stories, it's pretty breathtaking when you first walk up, and it's actually kind of a moment of like, I'm here. This is it. This is happening. I'm going to be a financial advisor. I'm going to be doing this. So it was really exciting," Difani said.

Twenty-five years later, the towers are gone. Upon arrival, instead of heading up Tower 2 to work, Difani headed down into the 9/11 Memorial and Museum.

"It makes me think, no wonder nobody thought these things were falling down. I mean, look at the steel. This thing is rock solid. Like, how could something like that just kind of, you know?" Difani said.

‘Devastating’

His second day of training started picture perfect.

"That day was probably the most beautiful day that I was there. Like that morning was unbelievable," Difani said. "Not a cloud in the sky. It was really a beautiful day."

He saved his memories in a plastic box, including his three-week training pass to access the 61st floor of Tower 2.

At the museum, he stopped near the mangled gear from one of the elevators.

"It's crazy. Devastating," Difani said.

Many small moments that day led him to safety.

"We had a break in between our classes and our, I guess, our speakers, and so I wanted to go to the very top, and my buddy said, 'Let's do it at lunch.' Fortunate, right?" Difani said.

A few moments later, coworkers gathered at the windows as papers started falling from the sky. Something was wrong in the North Tower.

"Some of the papers were on fire so you could see the building below us like some of those papers landing and there was, you know, they were on fire, so obviously something was up," Difani said. "We had some personnel that were from Morgan Stanley security that said, 'Hey, we're evacuating the building,' and so I went to say, 'OK, well, I'm going to go grab my briefcase, my jacket things that I had brought with me for the trip or for the day.' And she said, 'Nope, you can come back for those things later. It's time to evacuate,' kind of walk towards the elevator. And it was, 'Nope, we're taking the stairs.' So it's like, OK, like we're seriously evacuating. I walk in the staircase, there's a couple guys that I see right away that I walk into and they're freaked out. And I can tell that they're freaking out. And so I ask them, you know, ‘Do you guys know what is going on?’ And they said, 'Yeah, we were having breakfast on the 70th floor by the window, just in our normal routine. And we see a plane flying towards us and turns and hits the other tower, it's like a plane, like a Cessna, something like that,' and he said, 'Nope, it's an American Airlines.'"

After a few minutes in the stairwell, an intercom message in Tower 2 declared there was no need to evacuate. No one could have predicted a second plane was coming.

"You could have gotten into an elevator when they put out that message," Nielsen told Difani.

"I mean, it was, take the stairs. OK. I mean that's what it was," Difani replied.

"It's those moments though that changed your decisions," Nielsen said.

"Yeah, like people are hitting the elevator, and she goes, 'No, no, we're taking the stairs.' OK. I'll take the stairs," Difani said.

"Is that a life-saving arm pull right there?" Nielsen asked.

"Potentially, right? I mean, you don't know," Difani said.

Just then, the second plane hit the building.

"Fortunately for me, I happened to be standing on a landing, so when our building got hit, I kind of got slammed up against the wall. Other people were falling down the stairs if you happened to be, you know, walking when it hit. And then at that point. It's hard to describe a building of that magnitude and of that size, the way it moved. It just shouldn't move that way," Difani said. "It swayed enough that it was knocking people over. The impact certainly did that. And then it kind of sways back and forth and then stops moving. Which, you know, at that point, again, given that kind of an impact, for me personally, I don't think I'm making out of this. You know, you're kind of the whole walk down waiting for the, you know, the other shoe to drop waiting for the building to collapse. And that's, it's pretty awful. For longer than I would like, it was, you know, I was pretty sure that that's it, like, I'm going to die. Since you're so sure of it, or I felt so sure of it, that I just don't want anything to hurt. If it's going to end this way, please just be quick, painless. I don't want to. That was just, that was the one thought that I really did have walking down, is I just didn't want this to be, you know, painful. If it's going to end, it's going to end, but I, you know, I just don't want it to hurt when it does."

When asked how he kept putting one foot in front of the other, Difani explained the mental state required during the evacuation.

"I mean, there's really nothing else to do, right? It's just what you do. It's almost autopilot when you're doing it. I mean really, you're just kind of looking at your feet, just one step in front of the other. Obviously, after our building got hit, what was a few people in the stairwells now everybody in the stairwell, especially lower floors. So you end up with, you kind of get backed up in traffic a little bit. So it can be pretty tough to take a couple steps and stop, take a couple of steps and stopped," Difani said. "Initially, yeah. I mean, I think what happens, the building got hit. It's a shock to everybody. And then there's sort of that immediate panic of we got to get out, right? But there's nowhere to go."

'It's really unbelievable'

The plane that hit Tower 2 was United Flight 175. The names of those aboard are etched on the South Tower Memorial, including passenger Lisa Anne Frost, who attended the same high school as Difani, Trabuco Hills in California.

"I think she was about four years after me, so we didn't really cross paths. I mean, it's an almost impossible, you know, coincidence that something like that happened. It's pretty unbelievable. You know having her name on the Flight 175 Memorial is, you know, it kind of goes back to like, I could absolutely be one of the names in this museum and, you know, she's just on an airplane going to New York, right? And here she is now, you know, at a memorial with her name printed, you know, outside of this memorial. So it's crazy, it's really unbelievable. Feel horrible for her family," Difani said.

Some areas inside the museum are deeply personal, containing photos and stories of the victims. Camera coverage was kept out of those spaces, but the surroundings continue to evoke intense emotions for survivors. Pointing to an area in the museum structure, Difani identified where his office was located on the 61st floor.

Stories told throughout the space connected with him in ways he had not previously shared. Because he was only a trainee, he did not know the people surrounding him that day and was left without colleagues to share mutual memories over the years.

"I was there effectively by myself. I don't have a coworker that I'm there working in the building that we share experiences over the years just my experience and I can share my experience, but there's no reciprocity with somebody sharing, you know, giving me that sort of validation of their experience being similar to my own experience. And so, going through the museum and seeing, hearing quotes of people talking about things, seeing, you know, just as simple as seeing the papers flying and seeing some of the actual paper there kind of gives a, it's like having that conversation with somebody that I never have had," Difani said.

Entire areas are dedicated to the stairs that saved lives, including the remnants that helped people walk out of the North Tower.

"It's a miracle that a stairwell allowed people, especially after the South Tower goes down, that there's a stairwell that was in good enough shape that people could still survive underneath it. I mean, it seems impossible that anybody could have survived anywhere around there. These are monstrous buildings," Difani said.

‘Incredible bravery in a situation that is really scary’

Inside the South Tower, evacuees kept going step by step.

"The worst part for me and the part that probably sticks with me the most is you see, you know, not everybody, this is a very shocking moment that happens, and you don't know how you're going to react, right? And so you see people that are on a landing, they made it into the stairwell, they're on the landing, and they just can't keep going, they can't move, they are having, in shock, panic, you know, whatever it is, and their friends and co-workers, encouraging them, trying to help them, and it's you know, it's something, it's hard not to feel bad, like maybe you could have done something, or maybe I should have helped like, do that," Difani said. "You know, where they trapped in there trying to help their you know, their work family, try to get out of the building and then, you know didn't make it because, you know they were there trying to help their co-workers. So I mean those are, those are the people that are really like, those were the heroes of, those are people that are so selfless that they're not worried about their own safety, they're really more concerned about their friend's safety and helping them to make sure that they get out. I mean that's incredible, incredible bravery in a situation that is really scary."

Difani recalled the moment his mindset shifted as he made his way down.

"So 10, maybe it was 12. There was definitely a floor where I started to believe versus hope. I think I got down to like 25, 30, and I'm like, 'Well, it hasn't happened. Maybe it won't happen. Maybe I was wrong, right? But still, I don't want to get too hopeful, or it just doesn't.' It's kind of hard to describe," Difani said.

Eventually, after descending 61 floors, he reached the lobby.

"It looks like a war zone out in front. It's desolate, dusty, there's things falling, you've got concrete falling off of the building and smashing onto the ground from God knows how many feet. And so it's a dangerous situation just walking out the front door, you can't. And so they know that, so they kind of moved us back down into a lower level and then ultimately down into the subway where we walk across the platform, and it pops us up about a block away. So we're away from that debris. This is all planned by them, they know this is their evacuation procedure, and it's really well done and got the most people out. I think that you could possibly expect to get out of a situation like this," Difani said.

Looking back up at the structures, he witnessed the sheer desperation of those trapped inside.

"What the conditions have to be for your best choice to be to try to climb out and scale the building, I can only imagine where that becomes, ‘This is my only chance.’ And you know, you see people falling. You know, I don't think they were jumping, you hear that, people jumping out. I think people were trying all that you can do at that point, and it's, ‘I got to get out of this fiery floor, I'm just going to try to climb down,' you know, but it's, I mean, that's impossible, so what ends up happening? Obviously is they fall, and it just, it's horrible, it really is horrible to see that, you know, that's the choice that somebody had to make, that was their best option," Difani said.

‘The phone gets answered …’

A Call Home:

After escaping, Difani still had not seen the full scope of what happened. He was desperate to inform his family that he was safe, but relief was brief. He began walking down Church Street, planning to return to his hotel located more than 40 blocks away.

Along the path, he saw a plane engine in the middle of the road roughly three blocks away, a sight he described as mind-blowing.

An art gallery owner permitted him to use a phone to call home.

"The phone gets answered, and I can only hear screaming in the background. And it's just, ‘He's dead. He's dead, oh my God, he is dead.' And of course, it's our mom screaming that," Difani said.

His stepdad had to tell his mother to be quiet because Difani was on the line, bringing immense relief to the family. However, seconds after hanging up the phone, Difani stepped outside the art gallery, and the event he feared occurred.

"Everybody's pointing in unison, and they're pointing at the towers. I turn to see the building that I was just in start to collapse down … you can hear the whole thing and gone. I didn't see a lot of people crying before then. At that point, I mean, everybody in the street, that is just, it's a moment that is hard to put into words in terms of just the emotion of it for everybody there, everybody on the street. The shock. These buildings are mammoth. You can see being here at the memorial, just the footprint that these buildings have, the size that they represent within the city. To see one of those things go down is something you just can't unsee. And that was really an unbelievable moment," Difani said.

‘Really amazing people’

The two memorial fountains rest on the exact footprints where the buildings once stood, carrying the names of flight passengers, tower workers, and emergency responders. Difani struggles when people suggest he was saved for a reason, thinking instead of those who gave their lives.

"I was lucky to get out of the building. Their reason was to help other people and save as many as they could. So I struggle with that part of it for sure, more than anything else, is that, you know? I'm just a lucky guy that things broke right from me, you know, and then there's other people that walked into the teeth of the danger to save people like me that died. They're heroes. I mean, what it takes. And then police, fire, these, they're not saving coworkers or friends. They're saving strangers. And they're walking into an impossibly dangerous situation, willfully, gleefully going in, aggressively trying to save as many people, going into the most dangerous parts of this building to save strangers. Just really amazing people," Difani said.

As the towers collapsed, Difani kept walking down Church Street. He noted that due to adrenaline, he could have walked all the way to California.

At the time, his family did not know where he had made his initial phone call from or whether he had survived the collapse, enduring hours of agonizing uncertainty. Difani had not processed that he had not specified his location during the brief call.

He still has his ticket out of New York—a plane ticket and boarding pass that took five attempts and a full week to use.

Family members waited for a reunion they feared would never happen.

"Yeah, it's pretty exciting. It's relieving. It's like coming home to a warm blanket. There's just a feeling of, it's over. There's the finality of this whole thing. It's done. I'm home. I'm back where my family, my friends, this is like, so yeah, it's a nice feeling to kind of have this whole surreal movie-like experience done, and I'm back home and can hopefully start to process at that point, you know. It's hard to process these things as you're going through them," Difani said, noting that 25 years later, he still remembers the hug from his mother.

Later that day, his family displayed a large welcome home banner on his father's garage door and threw a party to celebrate his survival.

"I was really touched by all of this, and it was something that I wanted to keep and remember and show my kids one day," Difani said, referencing a local newspaper article that documented the welcome home gathering.

'Celebration of my son's life'

In the years since, he has reflected on the tragedy and shared small snippets in print, but he had never told his story in full depth or returned to Ground Zero until now.

Whether saved by luck, as he says, or something divine, he embraced life, marrying his wife Jenn and raising his children, Isabel and Colin. Incredibly, Colin was born on Sept. 11, 2008.

"It's now a day for us of not just remembrance but also for celebration of my son's life, which is great. And I'm happy that that's how it is celebrated," Difani said.

He remains aware that these moments are ones so many others around him that day never received, honoring those who died as the true heroes.

September 11New YorkNewsArizona