9/11: THE LAST ONE RESCUED
Genelle Guzman McMillan wanted a change from her home in Trinidad, so she moved to New York in 1998. In order to stay in New York, McMillan knew she needed to get a good, steady job. She couldn't believe it when she was hired at one of the World Trade Towers and was excited as she began her first day there on January 19, 2001. She made many friends through work--including live-in boyfriend, Roger--and spent each weekend partying.
On the morning of 9/11 she went to her job on the 64th floor. She and her coworkers heard a loud crash and the building moved. They stayed on the 64th floor until it became known what had happened.
Genelle and a coworker started down one of the stairwells and made it to the 13th floor. That is when the whole building collapsed. Amazingly, steel and concrete had pinned her where she was; she was injured, but she was alive. She lay there unable to move, rethinking her life.
Twenty-seven hours after the building collapsed, she was able to push her hand through a few inches of rubble above her head and felt someone's warm hand close around hers. Then she heard a male voice say to her: "I've got you, Genelle. My name is Paul," he told her. "You're going to be okay. They're going to get you out soon."
She heard other voices, sirens and a light. "They're here," Paul said. "I'm going to go and let them do their jobs and get you out."
Genelle was the last survivor pulled from the World Trade Center. There were three things she promised God she would do as soon as she got out of the hospital: get baptized, marry her boyfriend Roger, and find Paul, the one who first held her hand.
On November 7, after 6 weeks in the hospital, 4 surgeries and hours of physical therapy and rehabilitation, she kept two promises she made while trapped under the rubble. She and Roger got married at City Hall, and Genelle was baptized that evening into Jesus Christ.
But Paul? She never found him. Who was he? No one knew, no one had ever heard of him. She called her preacher and asked him. They discussed another Paul, the one in the Bible who was totally in the dark, like Genelle, and fought against God until he saw the light.