On 9/11, Gulnara Samoilova Watched the South Tower Collapse Through Her Camera
Twenty years ago, September 11, 2001 became—and will forever be—one of the biggest and most important news days in American history. As we remember the events that unfoldedasked five women journalists to reflect on covering the 9/11 attacks in real time and the lessons that can be learned today. Here, former Associated Pressrecounts the horror of running to Ground Zero with her camera in hand and watching the South Tower collapse through her viewfinder.
The most terrifying and memorable thing for me was seeing people jumping off the buildings. I couldn't even lift my camera. I'm a very visual person, and I was imagining what it was like to be inside of this building and how bad it must have been for them to choose to jump. Exactly a year before, I went to the top of the World Trade Center to the observation deck to see how high it was because I was thinking about doing skydiving. [Looking down], the cars are small.
I was wearing a T-shirt and I covered my face so the dust wouldn't go into my nose and mouth. I had these weird thoughts, too, like,. Then when I started choking, I heard a voice next to me. I couldn't see them, but it was a male. He said,"Are you okay?" Then I slowly started seeing this flashing light from parked emergency vehicles as well as silhouettes. That's when I realized that I was alive. So I started taking pictures again like nothing happened to me.
While I was developing [the film], the second building collapsed and all the dust came into my apartment. That's when a friend at AP who was a photo editor got through to me on my home phone. She was like,"We all were scared for you. You didn't answer. Are you okay?" I told her that I covered the World Trade Center and the collapse and everything. I remember her screaming,"Gulnara was there!" And [another] editor [in the background] was like,"Get to the office.
My fiancé was in Jersey City and I think he picked me up [from the office that night]. I don't remember getting to Jersey City at all. I just remember at night I had friends calling me . Then in the morning my boss [called and] woke me up and he's like,"Get back to the office." My body hurt so much. It felt like a truck ran over me. I was like,"Can I take the day off? I can't even move." He's like,"Please get to the office.
[The trauma and stress of the day] was really tough at the time. But it wasn't only September 11 itself. I was a photo editor of special projects and for a year I was looking at everything that staff photographers and freelancers did around September 11 for contests, exhibitions, and books. I've seen photos that nobody saw, and it was even more traumatizing. I was crying almost every day looking at those photos.
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