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First posted in LDN 09/09/2011
Flight attendant Vicki Selvaggio remembers Sept. 11, 2001

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[September 11, 2014]  Thursday evening a portion of the Lincoln Heritage Museum remembrance event for those lost on Sept. 11, 2001, included a presentation from Vicki Selvaggio of Springfield.

Selvaggio in 2001 was a flight attendant working for American Airlines. On Sept. 11, she found herself in New York City, just a short distance from the World Trade Center.

In her talk she described the events of the day, days after and the long-term effects it has had on her personally.

For Selvaggio the events of Sept. 11 began the day before, when she and her best friend, another American Airlines flight attendant, boarded their flight for New York. They were excited about the trip because it was going to include a long layover in the city, and they were looking forward to getting out and seeing the sights.

At 1 a.m. on Sept. 11 they checked into their hotel, went out to eat, and by 3 a.m. they were in their rooms sleeping.

Selvaggio recalled hearing sirens as she slept but not giving it a lot of thought. She relayed that in a city like New York, you hear sirens, they wake you up, you go back to sleep; it's just part of the process.

 

The reality of what was happening in New York was brought to her attention by her phone ringing that morning and her friend telling her to turn on the television.

"When I did, I asked, 'What country is this?' My friend responded, 'This is just down the street from us,'" Selvaggio said.

For Selvaggio, that was the beginning of real fear as she processed what was going on around her. She realized there was a possibility her life could end that day.

A portion of the safety precautions issued on Sept. 11 included the grounding of all flights. Across the United States, all airplanes were left on their tarmacs.

For Selvaggio and her fellow crew members, they were grounded indefinitely, with orders from the airline to stay put in the hotel so that when flights resumed, there would be crews available.

One of Selvaggio's greatest concerns was that she wasn't able to get through to her family in Illinois. Her husband, Andy, was a Springfield police officer, and she knew he was on duty. Her 2-year-old daughter would be with her mother-in-law for the day, as that was the normal routine for the family.

As Selvaggio tried to call home, she found that her cellphone wouldn't work because she had Verizon, and the Verizon tower had been atop the World Trade Center. Using land lines was practically impossible as they were jammed with literally thousands of calls, with people trying to find loved ones, and loved ones like Selvaggio calling home.

What Selvaggio didn't know at the time was that there was a terrible turmoil in Springfield.

When the news made it to her husband that an American Airlines plane had hit the World Trade Center, he left work and went home to check his wife's flight schedule. However, when he found her schedule, he misread it and believed that she had boarded a flight at 7:32 a.m. bound for Chicago.

 

At that moment he believed that his wife was among the lives lost in the first crash.

When Selvaggio was finally able to make a phone call, she called her mother-in-law first, not realizing what the family was going through and believing her husband would be at work.

By that time, Selvaggio's husband was at home with his brother, who had walked away from his shift also as a Springfield police officer when his supervisor told him that he could not leave.

Selvaggio's sister-in-law was with her mother-in-law and baby, and Selvaggio's own parents could not be reached by phone because they were hearing-impaired. 

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When her mother-in-law answered the phone, the shock of Selvaggio's voice caused her to black out. The sister-in-law grabbed the phone and kept saying, "Call Andy, call Andy."

After hours of grief and uncertainty, the Springfield Selvaggios learned that their loved one had survived the terrible ordeal in New York.

For Selvaggio herself, it was days of torture as she was trapped with no way to get home. She described living for days in the same clothing and the happiness she felt when her husband agreed that she needed to go shopping.

She remembered the day the airline crew decided they had to do something to help and offered to give blood, only to be told there was no need as there had been no survivors.

She remembered the dirt and dust and the smell of burning electrical wires, a smell that still haunts her.

And she remembers a strong determination to reach Illinois before her daughter's 2nd birthday, which she did.

After several days, her best friend's husband arrived in New York by car, and Selvaggio rode back to Ohio with them. They drove straight through, but on that day, she looked up and saw planes in the air. She took a flight to Chicago, where her car was parked, and drove home to Springfield.

For months after that, Selvaggio suffered from post-traumatic stress, she experienced anxiety attacks, and in general had a hard time recovering from what had been a near miss with death.

 

Three months after 9/11, she boarded her first flight as an American Airlines flight attendant. Selvaggio recalled walking through the boarding tunnel in tears, shaking in fear. She went straight to the pilot and expressed to him that she needed some kind of reassurance if she was going to be able to go through with the flight.

"He put his hands on either side of my face, and said to me, 'Vicki, there are three air marshals on this plane,' and that was good enough."

However, Selvaggio did not stay in her profession. Within two years, she would leave her career of flying.

As she concluded her presentation, Selvaggio said, "I don't know what your 9/11 moment is, but when I have mine, I draw from a higher power and remember to just breathe."

During questions and answers, Selvaggio was asked how she reacted at the news that Osama bin Laden had been captured and killed.

She responded, "I wanted to crack open a bottle of champagne."

She went on to say that she appreciated greatly all the effort that the U.S. military went through, and that in the end the death of bin Laden was something that needed to happen. In the audience around her Thursday night, some whispered in agreement and several nodded their heads.

[Copied from LDN archives 09/09/2011]

 

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