In 2001, New Zealand nurse Frances Hughes arrived in New York to take up the prestigious Harkness Fellowship in Health Care Policy. The next morning at 8:46am, a plane crashed into the World Trade Centre. Today, on the 25th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the now Dr Frances Hughes recalls that day to Julie Hill.
I was really excited about moving to New York. I thought, like most Kiwis do, you’re going to learn a great deal. I was in my mid-30s and doing my doctorate, and so many of the prominent people in public policy were from there. It was an amazing opportunity.
I went on my own – my husband and kids [then 11 and 13] were meant to meet me there. I arrived in New Jersey and stayed with a professor I knew then she drove me into New York. She said, which I’ll never forget, you’ve got to go up to the World Trade Centre but don’t go until after 9am because all the workers will be going in.
In the morning we walked up to Harkness House near Central Park. We were in a conference room when all of a sudden people started rushing around saying a plane had hit one of the towers.
We went outside and saw one of the towers falling. After a few minutes the other tower fell as well.
It came through that it was an attack. I rang my husband and said, "There’s going to be stuff you hear but I’m OK," and then I got cut off.
For her family back in NZ, it was a relief to see her alive. (Source: 1News)
So then I did what I know best, which is help people, talk to people, direct them to the Red Cross. By that stage, there was starting to be this eerie quietness. I felt like I was in a volcanic eruption. There was thick grey matter in the air that was coming off the towers and all sorts of things that you don’t even want to think about were in that air.
There were big yellow dump trucks, truck after truck after truck coming in because they’d shut the tunnels [the underground network that services New York’s islands]. They had boats going around the Hudson River with machine guns on them. All the rental cars were taken out of New York and everything just shut.
'I don't want to come, Mum'
I was asked to go into the Reuters studio and do an interview for the Paul Holmes show. The best thing about that was that my family saw I was alive. Because cellphone coverage was down and everybody was wanting to know, are you OK?
In Times Square there was no traffic, just people standing silently with candles and lights. There were foreign tourists taking photos and people got really angry at them. That was the first time I saw some anger. Afterwards I witnessed a lot of verbal aggression, people getting assaulted who looked like they came from a Muslim or an Arab country.
People had American flags on their handbags, American badges. Someone gave me a brooch but I wasn’t comfortable wearing it. I went to church and they sang God bless America and the Star-Spangled Banner.
All J1 visa holders were suspended so I was caught up in that. I couldn’t open a bank account, I didn’t have any access to money. My husband had to send me some cash. I stayed with friends because I couldn’t get a rental property for six or seven weeks.
Everything after that was affected: where you travelled, how you travelled, how you were treated, especially if you weren’t from the US. My family didn’t move over for a couple of months. My son said, 'I don’t want to come, Mum'.
A career honed by tragedy
Afterwards, I had trouble sleeping and I ended up with panic attacks. I’d been so busy trying to help everybody that I hadn’t really processed it.
I became really interested in psychosocial emergency response. I got involved with the Ministry of Health doing guidelines then went back to the US as a Fulbright scholar, looking at how to maintain resilience in hospitals prone to natural disasters.
I became very astute around travelling. I always have an exit plan. And I’m really appreciative of security at airports. People get frustrated with it but I find the vigilance really important.
I say to my kids, what would we do? Where would we go? When you’ve been through a situation like this, an emergency, you’ve got to always go back and say, I did it last time, I can do it again.
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