Transcripts from a Larry King interview with Michael Hingson, the blind
employee who escaped from the WTC:


Now joining us. Incredible story. Michael Hingson has been blind since
birth. Michael was
on the 78th floor of the World Trade Center, the one building, the north
tower. He was guided out by his guide dog Roselle and another colleague.
Michael,
first, what -- do you have a job in that building?
MICHAEL HINGSON, EYEWITNESS: Yes, I work for a company, Quantum ATL. We
manufacture enterprise scale libraries, tape libraries that back up data for
disaster
recovery situations such as this.
KING: Really? That's what you manufacture?
HINGSON: The company manufactures that out in California. And my job is to
manage the channel sales in New York and New Jersey.
KING: Is it a job that can be easily handled though blind?
HINGSON: Oh, yes. Obviously I use some different tools. I use a dog to get
around and sometimes I will use a cane. I use a computer that talks, a
calculator
that talks. I will write some material in braille. It certainly is a job
that I can do. Where you might drive a car to go to a place, I use a car
service
or rely on buses and trains.
KING: How long you work there?
HINGSON: I worked at the World Trade Center for about a year and a half.
KING: What happened? What do you remember happened?
HINGSON: There was an incredible bang. Sort of a dull thud, but certainly
very tremendous. Then the building shook very violently. I remember going,
"God,
don't let that building tip over." I had a lot of faith.
KING: What did you think it was?
HINGSON: I thought it was some sort of an explosion at first. My colleague
David Frank looked out the window as soon as the building stopped shaking
and
said there's fire above us. I could hear debris falling. And he said,
"There's just debris falling everywhere."
KING: So your first thought now is to get out. You're also blind. So you're
working on senses as well?
HINGSON: Absolutely. But I knew where the stair wells were. David could see.
He and I were the last out of the office. There were guests in the office as
well. They went out first. We got them out. And then we went out.
KING: And down 78 floors?
HINGSON: Down 78 floors.
KING: What role did the dog play?
HINGSON: She guided. She did a tremendous job. She is from Guide Dogs for
the Blind, which is one of the larger schools in the country that trains
these
dogs. They do an incredible job of selecting the animals, doing the best
that they can to acclimatize them to adverse conditions. This clearly can't
be
one of them. But she knows how to cope with noises, she knows how to cope
with a lot of different stressful things. She played guide down the stairs.
KING: That's the school in Rochester, Minnesota, right?
HINGSON: No, this is in San Rafael, California.
KING: I remember Guide Dogs for the Blind in Minnesota is the main base. The
dog is with you, we understand, Michael?
HINGSON: Roselle, sit. I don't know whether you can see her.
KING: We see her. Beautiful dog.
HINGSON: She is a good girl.
KING: And a brave dog.
HINGSON: She is.
KING: You are walking down 78 floors. You have a friend with you and you've
got your dog. Are you scared?
HINGSON: No question. I was very concerned. I didn't hear the second plane
hit, but we knew that at that time something had happened. We figured that a
plane had hit the building because I could smell -- we all could smell jet
fuel fumes. So we knew there was something going on.
KING: How about other people on the stairway?
HINGSON: Yes, and I'm referring to them as well. There were a lot of people
going down the stairs, especially when we got down into the levels around
floor
40 and so on.
KING: When you're blind, do you fear they will push right by you? Knock you
over?
HINGSON: No, I wasn't so concerned about that. I stayed on the right-hand
side. There was plenty of room for people to pass if they wanted to do that.
And
some did.
KING: Was it true some people were cheering you?
HINGSON: There were people that were doing that. I was cheering other
people. We all cheered the firemen and the police and those who went
upstairs. We
were very concerned for them. We slapped them on the backs, they were being
very supportive. "Do you need help? Are you OK?" they would ask us. And we
asked them, "Are you all OK? Go get them, do everything you can. Our faith
is in you."
KING: Did the firemen talk to you?
HINGSON: Yes.
KING: Saying?
HINGSON: Are you OK? Is somebody with you? Don't worry. You'll be out OK.
Just don't be scared. Just keep going, you're going to do fine.
KING: Did you smell any jet fuel?
HINGSON: Lots, yes. There were fumes all the way down.
KING: Then when you get to the lobby, what happens?
HINGSON: Well, we had the go through a lot of water. The sprinklers were
running. There was a lot of debris on the floor. We got out of the lobby to
the
main World Trade Center Shopping Mall, which is also inside. From there we
escorted out of the building and then we moved away.
KING: And did you learn of the second tower being hit?
HINGSON: I didn't know the second tower had been hit. I knew there was fire
on both towers. We got about two blocks away, and then building two started
to collapse. So we all -- there were a number of us, we ran for cover. We
ran into a subway station. But by that time we were already covered with
soot.
We had to go through a lot of falling glass and a lot of other kind of
debris. Then we got out of the subway and a couple blocks further, one
collapsed.
KING: You've been in earthquakes, too, Michael?
HINGSON: Yes, I used to live in California.
KING: This much worse?
HINGSON: Much worse. It's not fun being at the epicenter.
KING: No. By the way, how long did it take to get down? HINGSON: I would say
altogether from starting in the stairs to getting outside the building, for
me, probably about 50 minutes or so. I was out about 20 minutes before Two
collapsed.
KING: How is life for you now with no place to work?
HINGSON: Well, I'm doing fine. I've got a computer at home that talks. I can
work at home. Even coming in this evening on the cell phone I was speaking
with one of our customers, Nam, who is talking about buying one of our
libraries. I can conduct business on the phone. We go forward, from that
standpoint.
At the same time, I'm really ticked at the people that did this. They took
our lives.
KING: Michael, we salute you and we salute Roselle.
HINGSON: Thank you very much. She is a good dog.
KING: God bless.
HINGSON: God bless you.

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