He is my connection to the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Brian Clark was one of the few people who worked above where the planes struck the towers and survived. I was shocked to see his face on the television many months after.
It's funny how people weave into your life, exit and pop up again many years later. Brian Clark was on my softball team in 1973, I believe. He played second base. Offensively, he wasn't a huge threat, but he rarely made an error defensively.
Knowing he lived through the terrorist attack made it more real to me. Often we hear of tragic events, but really don't relate to them. They happen to others far away. Brian brought it much closer to me.
When you hear his story, it is quite amazing. Initially he was leading a group down the stairs in the South Tower. A couple of people were coming up and told everyone that it would be better to go higher. An argument started among the employees. Brian heard a voice of a trapped man on the floor they were on. He went to extract him from the wreckage. When he returned to the stairwell with the man, nobody was there.
At that point, he could have gone up like everybody else did. He didn't. He continued down the stairwell. That decision saved his life. Within a few minutes of his leaving the building, it collapsed, killing all who were inside it.
I remember the CBC asking if he felt any guilt. His response was that he didn't. They had made their choice and he had made his. He wasn't responsible for their decision.
I feel there are some life lessons to learn from this story. Sometimes everybody tells us the direction we should follow. They tell us to go up, when we strongly feel we should go down. We can be swayed by what others say. They can put fear in our hearts and their words may seem logical. Sometimes we need to be like Brian. We need to do what we feel is right, even if it means going against the grain. It may mean going through some immediate discomfort and working your way through wreckage. At the end of it all, it may mean your release from disaster. Sure, you could have climbed to the higher floors and experienced momentary relief, but the result was sad.
Regardless of whether there is anything to be learned from this, Brian put a human face to the story, bringing it a lot closer, and making it real.