Melissa Doi, 32, spent more than twenty minutes on the phone with a 911 operator from the 83rd floor of the south tower.
She told the dispatcher: "I’m going to die, aren’t I? Please God, it’s so hot, I’m burning up."
UPDATE I didn’t participate in the blogosphere effort to profile the WTC dead. Google lead me to Melissa. But this mil blogger chose her as part of the program, and did a memorable job.
"She loved her mother so much that she bought a condo in the Bronx large enough for both of them to live in together. She and her mother were leaving for a trip to Italy on that Friday, the 14th…"
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 
My remembrance of that morning was coming downstairs for breakfast and finding Mom hurrying Mr. Boy, who had just begun to walk a few months earlier, out of the TV room off the kitchen. When I saw the towers burning I couldn’t stop watching, captured by the disbelief that was magnified when they fell. Mr. B’s Mom kept him occupied in the living room. She didn’t want him to be upset by it, although I think he would not have understood what was going on, anyhow. Soon, of course, he’ll be old enough to watch it on the Internet anytime he wants– to share his old Dad’s disbelief.
Tom Ringwald posted this on our Army OCS class email list. I don’t think he’d mind me sharing it here, because it fits Melissa Doi so well:
As I watch flower after flower being placed in the reflection pool at ground zero, I think of all the beautiful flowers who perished that fateful day five long years ago.
It is now the second moment of silence, but how can millions of falling tears be silent?
Why can’t this country and rest of the world unite to rid the earth of this plague?
May the souls of these flowers, taken long before they were fully bloomed, be eternally blessed and never forgotten.
Remember Them,
Tom
I was scheduled to do post-production ADR work for the November release of the film, THE ONE. I drove to the studio location in a mental fog; this was a day unlike any other. As I entered the sound stage and greeted Jim Wong, the director, TV monitors about the room were tuned to live broadcasts of CNN…and what they depicted at 11AM Los Angeles time was the madness and tragedy taking place live in New York. It was the morning of September 11th, 2001. My day had begun at 7AM with a call from my niece Celia, letting me know that her brother, (my nephew Rai) was NOT in danger; his work at Solomon Bros. placed him away from the Twin Towers on THIS particular morning. I groggily acknowledged that information and turned on my television…to discover the devastation and heartache directly across the street from my last home.
I later called the studio to see if my scheduled session had been perhaps postponed…Nope. To be fair, buildings were not burning in Los Angeles, the film’s release was imminent, and we had yet to assimilate the significance of what was taking place ‘on the other side of America’. Yet it was surreal to be engaged in my work as an artist, while watching live footage of the unfolding tragedy 3000 miles away.
Being an hour behind the east coast, I was on my way to work when a report on the radio said that a plane had hit the World Trade Center, but there were no details. On my way into my office, I stopped in the conference room, and turned on the TV to see if there was any additional news. I sat tansfixed by what was unfolding, and all my fellow workers joined me. I can remember a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach as all kinds of emotions from shock to deep sadness, apprehension about what was happening in the country, and growing anger flooded me. About 11:00, the owner, my boss closed our business and told us to go home to our families.
My office is in Giants Stadium. We had a view of the towers and my co-workers and myself watched as the towers fell. The next week was hectic as the Sports Complex was a staging area for equipment, food and supplies that were needed to support the rescue effort at “ground zero”. It was unbeleivable. The amount of supplies that were mustered from all over the country in short order and the dedication of the people to make sure that whatever was needed was sent to the rescurers at ground zero.