Episode 77 Author and (Ret.) Secret Service Agent Samantha Horwitz: Surviving 9/11

" I do not recognize my own reflection staring back at me"

On September 11^th, 2001, todays guest woke up to head to work to the World Trade Center to lead a meeting on an upcoming event.  Her stress began as she sat behind a wreck on the way to the twin towers. The life of a Secret Service Agent is calculated and the importance of being punctual is paramount as she parked and quickly entered the WTC to make her meeting.

The world watched as the North Tower was struck by an airliner at 8:46 am and the destruction and terror unfolded that day.

The South Tower was struck at 9:03 am and the city became aware that the first plane crash was no accident.

At 9:37 am Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon and then at 10:02 and Flight 93 crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. In a little over an hour after the coordinated terror attacks started both Towers of the World Trade Center in New York had fallen.

America was under attack and today we sit down with a survivor who was in the North Tower as the first plane struck and she gives a detailed account of her day watching this terror unfold until she went home that night.

The story did not stop for this guest as she went home however the nightmare was just beginning as she began to see how PTSD is real and can create despair and loss of hope. This guest will walk us through the years of struggle that led her to her basement to take her own life to stop the pain.

This episode is just not an episode about the terrorist attacks on 9/11 but more importantly discusses the real battle, that so many people fight daily with PTSD.

Today’s guest not only survived the incident, not only survived the mental decline, not only survived the thoughts of suicide but now has a new “Why” in life. She fights for so many as she educates others in trauma management and tells her story in hopes that others can learn and survive and thrive themselves.

ATO Family please welcome Samantha Horwitz to the stage as she takes us back to September 11^th 2001.

www.samanthahorwitz.com

www.abadgeofhonor.com

 Critical Incident:

 The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11,^[d] were four coordinated Islamist suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, 19 terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners scheduled to travel from the New England and Mid-Atlantic regions of the East Coast to California. The hijackers crashed the first two planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, two of the world's five-tallest buildings at the time, and aimed the next two flights toward targets in or near Washington, D.C., in an attack on the nation's capital. The third team succeeded in crashing into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense in Arlington County, Virginia, while the fourth plane crashed in rural Pennsylvania following a passenger revolt. The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people and instigated the multi-decade global war on terror.

Even today several survivors are still suffering from this day with PTSD and unique forms of cancer.

May We Never Forget!