 Happier Days —
Juliette Bergman poses with her husband Brian in July
1999.
‘I thought we would be dead’
Survivor grateful, but grieving loss of others
By SHERRY HALBROOK
At 8:45 a.m. on September 11, PEF member Juliette Bergman
arrived at work on the 82nd floor of 1 World Trade
Center, where she is an associate transportation analyst
for the state Transportation Department.
“I just took off my jacket and sat down at my
desk,” she says, “when I saw debris flying past
my window. The tower began swaying from side to side so
much that I thought it would topple over. Books were
coming down from the shelves.
“I grabbed my purse and ran to the stairs to get
out. There was no panic, but it started to get crowded on
the stairs by the time we got down to the 50th floor.
When we got to the 30th floor, firefighters were coming
up the stairs.”
Bergman says she usually wears slacks and low-heeled
shoes to work, but had worn a skirt and high heels on
that day. By the time she reached the first floor, her
feet had given out.
“I was having trouble walking, but it hurt even more
when I tried to walk barefoot,” she says, “so,
two young men offered to help me.
“When we finally got to the lobby, we thought we
were safe. But just as we walked through the lobby doors
onto the mezzanine for the shopping mall, the other tower
collapsed. We heard what sounded like thunder and all of
the lights went out. I was thrown to the floor and one of
the men who were helping me fell on top of me,” she
recalls.
“It was total darkness and everything started
falling on us. People panicked. I thought we would be
dead because of all the debris that was falling from the
ceiling. But the men helped me up. We were inhaling a lot
of dust and we couldn’t find an exit. We thought we
were trapped.
“Then we saw a firefighter with a flashlight in the
distance. He showed us the way, and we got
outdoors.”
At that moment, she says, “Seeing the horrible
destruction all around us, we felt like we were losing
our senses, but we were happy to be alive.”
Bergman says her eyeglasses, jacket and purse had been
lost in the darkness and confusion, along with all of her
cash, checkbook, identification, credit cards and
health-insurance cards.
“Each of the men gave me $10,” she says,
“and then someone helped me walk to Beekman (NYU
Downtown) Hospital a few blocks away. I was having a lot
of trouble breathing because of all of the dust I’d
inhaled.
“I was at the hospital until 7 p.m., and we could
not reach my husband, Brian, because all of the phone
lines were dead or jammed. Finally, the nurse tried
calling him collect from a pay phone and that call got
through.
“I was worried about him, because he has congestive
heart failure and I was afraid he would have a heart
attack.”
As it turned out, her husband’s heart was pounding
so hard while watching the television coverage, that he
had thought of going to the hospital. But, instead, he
remained home hoping for a call from his wife.
Two days later, the Bergmans were safe in their New
Jersey home, but still very much shaken by the
experience.
“They gave me medications, but I still keep having
panic attacks and I can’t sleep for more than a few
hours at a time,” she says.
“My wife needs some professional counseling to deal
with this,” Brian Bergman says. “She went
through hell.”
She says she had been notified that counselors would be
available that day at a meeting of the DOT survivors at
the agency’s regional office in Long Island City.
But she was not up to the journey to Queens and back.
This is the second time terror has struck Bergman at
work. She also went through the bombing of the World
Trade Center in 1993.
“I had nightmares and many thoughts of death for
about half a year after that first attack. I didn’t
want them, but I didn’t know how to get rid of them.
This time, it’s much worse,” she says.
“The horror is magnified many, many times. It’s
so painful and sad when I think of those firefighters I
saw rushing up the stairs and now they are dead.
“I feel like my husband felt after World War II,
when all of his family died in German extermination camps
and he felt guilty about being alive.
“I am alive and that’s great, but thousands of
others, including three of my co-workers, are not. I feel
like I am living on borrowed time now, and that I must do
something with it to help others.”
“We are the happiest couple alive,” says
Bergman’s husband. But they are both crying.
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WTC
terror strikes PEF members
By DENYCE DUNCAN LACY
As The Communicator goes to press, 36 of the PEF members
who worked in the World Trade Center (WTC) on September
11 are still among the thousands of people missing
after the worst terrorist attack in US history.
Thirty-three of those still unaccounted for are from the
state Tax and Finance Department.
They were among the 170 PEF members at Tax and Finance
working on the 86th and 87th floors of 2 WTC.
Three PEF members from the state Department of
Transportation are also missing. They were among the 55
members at DOT who worked on the 82nd floor of 1 WTC.
PEF has established a disaster relief fund to aid missing
and injured members
In all, some 300 PEF members worked in the two towers,
including about 90 members who worked on the 16th floor
of 2 WTC for the National Development and Research
Institutes (NDRI), which conducts drug and alcohol
addiction research, treatment and prevention funded
primarily by government contracts and grants. All of
those members have been accounted for.
The terror also struck close to home for thousands of
other PEF members and state employees who were evacuated
from nearly a dozen other state agencies near the Trade
Center, including the: state Banking Department; Office
of Children and Family Services; Office of Temporary and
Disability Assistance; state Insurance Fund; Insurance
Department; state Liquor Authority; Department of State;
Comptroller’s Office; Department of Labor;
Department of Law; and Division of Housing and Community
Renewal.
As the horror unfolded, phone circuits were jammed as PEF
leaders and staff frantically tried to reach members to
make sure they were safe.
And the PEF field office for Regions 10 and 11 —
just five blocks north of the Trade Center — was
also evacuated. The union has set up a temporary office
at 335 Adams Street in Brooklyn.in
their own words...
Dianne Fattah
in their own words...
Joel Vetter
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