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“The whole world went silent”
A 2010 nursing graduate believes God had a reason for her survival Sept. 11, 2001, at ground zero.
by Ruth Tumblin ’10
[Warning: This article includes graphic details that some readers may find disturbing.]
As the countdown begins for the anniversary of the day I died, the anxiety begins, the nightmares, the memories – it all comes back as if someone pushed the rewind button.
I am a World Trade Center survivor. Ever since then, for me every day is a gift, a chance and an opportunity to do something good for someone.
I will begin by saying that Sept. 11, 2001, started out to be a beautiful day. My son and I got ready for our normal routine. As we walked, we kept admiring the sky, as it was so clear and blue.
We kissed and hugged and I watched as my son entered the schoolyard. Then I rushed down into the subway to catch the No. 1 train.
I worked for a Morgan Stanley Dean Witter brokerage firm. Our offices were located at 5 World Trade on the sixth floor.
I got upstairs and shortly after I began getting ready for my work day, my whole world changed. I was about to start my computer when the building shook and there was a loud explosion. I turned around to see what could have possibly made such a horrible sound. To my shock, what I saw was people running and huge things falling from above. I saw a woman reach out her hand to a man as he was crushed and killed by a piece of the building.
At this point, I thought we were having an earthquake. My first impulse was to duck underneath my desk. I’m glad I didn’t. God sent angels right away to my side. My co-worker and I made our way downstairs.
Once outside, we were able to see up and we saw the flames. There was stuff falling all around us. At one point, we were directly across from the towers and we witnessed people jumping to their deaths. I saw a man and a woman grab each other’s hands and jump. I kept praying to God to please let them wait – help would get to them.
[We heard] another explosion and we just froze and didn’t know what to do. I thought I had died and was in a horrible nightmare. As we kept walking, we saw a woman running toward us. A piece of debris split her in half right in front of us. I saw a firefighter jump from a moving truck and grab both her upper and lower body, trying to keep it together. They are two of the missing who never made it.
We made our way to the park, where we met other co-workers and just grabbed each other and cried. They had witnessed the second plane crashing into the second tower.
At that point, I realized this was [not a dream – it was] actually happening. All I wanted to do was make my way to my son’s school to get him so he would not be alone in this hell.
A woman – an angel, I would say – came to me and stayed with me until we made it to 145th Street uptown. By this time, the trains had stopped. Everything seemed to stop. It seemed as if the whole world went silent.
In the street, a man in a small car stopped – another angel – and asked where we needed to go. She asked him to please take us to the hospital on 168th Street. Once we made it to the hospital, I felt better because directly across the street was my son’s school.
I was taken in and classified as the first victim to make it to that hospital. As I sat there and watched everything move in slow motion, the nurse came to me and grabbed my arm. She asked another nurse to come close. She said, “Mrs. Tumblin, both towers have just collapsed.” Her words seemed to be so distant, almost like whispers floating in my head. In the background, on the radio, I heard as they reported that a plane had crashed into the Pentagon and another crashed in Pennsylvania.
I must have passed out, because the next thing I remember was a long hallway and the flames and smoke at a distance as I was being transferred to a room.
All my son’s teachers had gathered around him and lifted him up in prayer, hoping I would not be one of the injured or dead. I was finally reunited with my son around 1 a.m.
I know that God saved me for a reason. I felt as if I died and was brought back to new life, a life of service to others. For this reason, I decided to return to school and get my nursing degree.
I lift my hands to you, Lord, so that they may bring good and healing. I lift myself to you, Lord, so that I may help someone in their final moment to finish their life journey peacefully. Many on Sept. 11, 2001, did not get that chance.
I don’t share my story to scare anyone. I share my story to let people know that God is good. Even in such a tragic moment, God is there. I know this because he sent angels to be with me. I traveled through the valley of death, and God was there.
Ruth Tumblin is a 1987 graduate of Hesston High School. In 2001, she was working as a mutual fund networker and IRA researcher for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, with offices in the South Tower of the World Trade Center as well as in 5 World Trade Center, a nine-story building that was part of the WTC complex.
After 9/11, Tumblin entered therapy to help her cope with the terrible memories and what-ifs – she had been offered another job with Morgan Stanley in their offices in the South Tower, on the 48th floor, but had turned it down. One day when she was talking to her therapist, the therapist said: “You know, you ought to consider becoming a nurse.”
Tumblin moved to Ohio to take classes to enable her to get into a nursing program. Then, because Kansas had once been home and because some members of her extended family had attended Bethel, she applied there.
At age 40, Tumblin was the oldest member of the Class of 2010 and part of a nursing class that saw 18 of 20 pass the national nursing certification exam, the NCLEX, on the first try.
Tumblin tells of an experience she had during her nursing studies at Bethel, of helping a woman deliver on Sept. 11. It was beautiful, she says, “to witness the birth of life at exactly the same day and time as I witnessed so many people die years before.”
Tumblin currently works in the Generations unit at Newton Medical Center and continues as a volunteer for Community Hospices of America in Newton, which she has done for the last two years while studying at Bethel.
Pauls Nursing Scholarship
One financial boost Ruth Tumblin got to study nursing at Bethel came in the form of the Pauls Nursing Scholarship, created from the estates of three sisters from Inman, Martha (1910-94), Justina (1901-95) and Eva (1906-99) Pauls.
The sisters’ nieces and nephews, led by estate trustee Al Penner ’61, established the endowed scholarship to honor their aunts’ dedication to serving others. The recipient, usually a junior or senior nursing major, agrees to spend a year in some kind of voluntary service following graduation.
Of the three sisters (part of a family of 10 children of Henry J. and Sara Doerksen Pauls), only Eva pursued advanced education, at Hesston Academy, Bethel Deaconess Hospital School of Nursing and Moody Bible Institute.
Eva felt a strong call to the mission field from an early age. She was ordained as a missionary to India in 1937 and from then until 1959 served in that country – at Champa Hospital, Leprosy Hospital and a medical clinic at Korba Station.
Martha and Justina, along with their sister Sara, moved home to care for their aging parents in 1950 and did so until their parents’ deaths. Eva joined them in 1959 after retirement from the mission field.
Martha also worked in the kitchen at McPherson Memorial Hospital and in housekeeping at Pleasant View Home in Inman. Justina had positions at Grace Children’s Home, Henderson, Neb., Rosthern (Saskatchewan) Youth Farm, Bethel Deaconess Hospital and Pleasant View, in the years she was not needed at home.
The sisters were lifelong, active members of Bethel Mennonite Church in Inman.
“Careful, thoughtful planning was an important element of their lives,” says their nephew Al Penner. Their estate gift represents “their desire to serve others and in so doing serve their Savior … with what had been entrusted to them.”
Melanie Zuercher