9/11 "survivor" tale

[Gob]

Tania Head's 9/11 survival story was the stuff of Hollywood, shooting her to fame, a position of influence and capturing the hearts of many. Pity it was all a lie. By Robin Gaby Fisher and Angelo J. Guglielmo.



It was nearly two years after the September 11 terrorist attacks that a woman with the most harrowing tale of survival emerged. Tania Head debuted in an online forum for World Trade Centre survivors in the spring of 2003. The traumatised men and women who were sharing their stories had been through so much, little could shock them. But her story did.

Tania said she was waiting for an express lift in the south tower of the World Trade Centre when the wing of United Airlines Flight 175 tore through the crowded 78th-floor sky lobby, instantly killing nearly everyone around her. She flew through the air "like a rag doll", collided with a wall and was knocked unconscious. When she awoke, she was pinned under a jagged slab of marble, which had likely protected her from incineration as the fireball of jet fuel enveloped the lobby. Somehow she managed to free herself. As she crawled across the buckling floor, searching for a way out, small fires seethed around her and flames shot from the empty lift shafts. She was burnt and bleeding and her right arm dangled from a thread of muscle. She tucked the arm into her jacket pocket to keep it from falling off.

Only thoughts of her husband, Dave, who worked in the north tower, kept her from surrendering to death. Their love affair had begun like a romantic comedy when they fought over a cab on a rainy night outside the World Trade Centre, two years earlier. It could only be ascribed to fate that they ran into each other again a few weeks later and ended up marrying on a beach in Hawaii. She didn't want it to end in that godforsaken building.

As she crawled over charred corpses and severed body parts, trying to get her bearings, her attention was drawn to a sudden movement in the sea of stillness. It took her a moment to realise it was a man, camouflaged by a knot of grisly bodies and his own terrible burns. The man reached for her. "Please give this to my wife," he said, dropping a ring in her hand. She stared down at the ring and saw it was inscribed with a woman's name and the word "Forever". "I'll find her and give it to her," Tania promised, as the man drew his final breath. It was only as she dropped the ring into her pocket that she realised her suit jacket was burning. The heat in the lobby was punishing and she felt the air being sucked from her lungs. Looking over the carnage, her anxiety turned to despair, then resignation. She was going to die there.

A moment later, a man with a red bandanna wrapped around his face appeared through the curtain of smoke that separated the living from the doomed. He patted down her burning clothes. "I've found a stairway," he said. She later identified him as Welles Remy Crowther, the 24-year-old equities trader who died after helping dozens of people to safety that day. The young hero guided her down 40 flights of stairs before handing her off to a firefighter, then went back to try to help others. She had just reached the street when the building collapsed.

She woke up five days later as a "Jane Doe" in a New York hospital, one of the few who had been at, or above, the point of impact when the plane hit and survived. Dave hadn't been as lucky. He perished in the north tower.

Tania's story was stunning. Word spread quickly through the close-knit survivor community that someone extraordinary had just come forward. The survivors embraced their newest member and she became a tireless advocate for them. Within months, Tania was leading tours of Ground Zero, telling her story to mesmerised visitors and powerful politicians alike. She forged a friendship with the parents of Welles Crowther, the man who saved her life, and promised to one day give them a piece of her burnt jacket because it was one of the last things their son ever touched.

With Tania as a figurehead, the small support group grew into a fully-fledged advocacy organisation with considerable political might. Her name opened doors. She successfully lobbied curators of the World Trade Centre Memorial and Museum committee to ensure that the museum accurately reflected the journey of the survivors and commemorated their legacy in the story of 9/11. She led the fight to preserve the "survivors' stairway", which hundreds took to safety on the morning of the attacks. She befriended the World Trade Centre site manager and convinced him to give the survivors a private tour of Ground Zero, something they had asked for, but had never been granted. The others came to see Tania as the über survivor. They were loyal to her, even when she was difficult and demanding. Even when it meant turning on one of their own - as happened in 2005, when she instigated a crusade to get rid of the group's founder, Gerry Bogacz, a survivor of both the 1993 and 2001 World Trade Centre attacks. Bogacz was forced out and Tania was elected president.

On the fourth anniversary of the attacks, Tania stood with then New York governor George Pataki, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former mayor Rudy Giuliani at the opening of the World Trade Centre tribute centre at Ground Zero, posing for pictures and bravely recounting her story. The New York Daily News devoted a column to her. "To behold Head's smile is to know the terrorists did not come even close to winning," they wrote. "To see that smile is also to be challenged to be as decent and positive as this true survivor."

If only her story had been true.



Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/ta ... z1vZD8s0Rq

[rubato]

The desire for fame is one which is, in principle, without limit; like greed and the desire for power.


There is a woman at work that I've caught making up stories to make her life sound more dramatic than it really is. Sad.


yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

Now that really is sad....

Look at the woman...

She obviously doesn't have much going for her....

[Big RR]

I saw a documentary on her on one of the history channels, and it's pretty sad. the one thing I couldn't understand is why people took her so seriously when a lot of things she said (and did) made no sense. It's almost like everyone wanted to believe her.

[Lord Jim]

It's easy to be condemnatory and angry towards someone who would do something like this...

It's appalling on it's face...

But when you look at this woman...

You kind of get more of an understanding of how this might have happened...

An active and vibrant social life has obviously not been on the menu for her...

That doesn't excuse it, but it makes it a bit more comprehensible...

[MajGenl.Meade]

Why are people so hateful towards ugly people? i mean... we're all human and we all have feelings. some people act like ugly people have no feelings at all when they say things like "ugly people are always nice and the hot guys are always assholes" or "i'm deleting all the ugly people from my friend's list" stuff like that. i'm one of those ugly people, well at least that's my opinion and a few others as well. i just think the world isn't worth living in nowadays.

it's so sad that most of the people that commit suicide are ugly, shy, quiet and lonely. while the beautiful and handsome people live life happy and fulfilled because they have friends and they have a love life. why is it like this? have you none consideration?

i hate to be the one who says this but this is the reason why students bring guns to school and start shooting as many people as possible then take their own life.

[dales]

It's easy to be condemnatory and angry towards someone who would do something like this...

It's appalling on it's face...

But when you look at this woman...

You kind of get more of an understanding of how this might have happened...

An active and vibrant social life has obviously not been on the menu for her...

That doesn't excuse it, but it makes it a bit more comprehensible...

She could've posted at this place.

[Lord Jim]

Why are people so hateful towards ugly people? i mean... we're all human and we all have feelings. some people act like ugly people have no feelings at all when they say things like "ugly people are always nice and the hot guys are always assholes" or "i'm deleting all the ugly people from my friend's list" stuff like that. i'm one of those ugly people, well at least that's my opinion and a few others as well. i just think the world isn't worth living in nowadays.

it's so sad that most of the people that commit suicide are ugly, shy, quiet and lonely. while the beautiful and handsome people live life happy and fulfilled because they have friends and they have a love life. why is it like this? have you none consideration?

i hate to be the one who says this but this is the reason why students bring guns to school and start shooting as many people as possible then take their own life.

I'm not smart enough to know for sure, but I believe I've just been insulted...

Something along the lines of being "a superficial twit" if I'm not mistaken....

Well, it won't be the first time...

[MajGenl.Meade]

Oh I had you classified as being on of the beautiful and handsome people (who) live life happy and fulfilled because they have friends and they have a love life

[Lord Jim]

Oh I had you classified as being on of the beautiful and handsome people (who) live life happy and fulfilled because they have friends and they have a love life

And I'm supposed to apologize for that?

(Though mind you, "beautiful" may be a bit of stretch...)

[Guinevere]

What an incredibly sad story. She obviously was lacking so much in her life (despite all the $$), and had no idea how to make her life her own, in a real and meaningful way. I think there are probably more people like her than we know. I've run into several people who feel the need to lie and embellish their lives to make themselves feel better and more important. What's odd to me is that they embellish things which seem really unimportant to me (and I think to many others) -- which I think underscores that fact that they really have a good sense of what is real and what isn't.

[Gob]

She obviously was lacking so much in her life (despite all the $$), and had no idea how to make her life her own, in a real and meaningful way. I think there are probably more people like her than we know.

Bites tongue, bites, tongue, bites tongue.....

[rubato]

"... The others came to see Tania as the über survivor. They were loyal to her, even when she was difficult and demanding. Even when it meant turning on one of their own - as happened in 2005, when she instigated a crusade to get rid of the group's founder, Gerry Bogacz, a survivor of both the 1993 and 2001 World Trade Centre attacks. Bogacz was forced out and Tania was elected president. "


Some people earn the title "ugly".

yrs,
rubato

[loCAtek]

Reminds me of that CSB guy who claimed to be in contact with the 9/11 terrorists, the Oklahoma bomber and a victim of the Florida correctional system ...what was his name? There were so many!

[dales]

Bosco

[BoSoxGal]

In reading the full article about her past I couldn't help feeling sorry for her horses - assuming she's always been a large girl, that is.

Ugly is definitely an inside job, but she's not the first fat girl I've known of who created a phantom love and other false positives to improve the view others have of her.

[Big RR]

I don't think size has all that much to do with it (and if I remember correctly she was not very large at a younger age); I have known many people incapable of telling the truth. Some were legends in their own minds to con others (I think a lot of politicians fall into this category), some were people who were pretty pathetic and invented stories to get along. But most of the time most people pretty much recognize them for what they are, even if they don't confront them. That's what surprised me about this story--her lies were fairly blatant but people apparently believed them. I guess Abe Lincoln was right.

[MajGenl.Meade]

if I remember correctly she was not very large at a younger age

rubato - any demographic on that? I think he's correct.

[Lord Jim]

I'm sure if I were a relative of someone who died in the attack, that I would be furious with this woman and feel completely betrayed...

But having the distance of not being personally involved like that, I have to say I really feel that the woman is more sick than evil...(I don't always say that, but in this case I think it's true.)

To me this sort of falls into the same sort of pathology as the guys you read about occasionally who never served in the military but pretend to be highly decorated soldiers or veterans....

Though that is actually considered to be a crime....

I'm not sure what crime this woman committed, (unless she accepted money from that government fund that was set up for survivors...I assume then that she might be charged with fraud.)

[Big RR]

If I recall correctly there were some allegations of misapproriation of funds, and i think she got some fees for appearances and interviews. But I generally agree with you, I find it more interesting than infuriating.