Program for Friday January 10, 2003 Dr. Liebgold (Dr. Fear) Door Duty: Jim Beaver and Jim Young * * * * * * * * * Program for Friday January 17, 2003 To Be Announced Door Duty: Donna Bell and Donna Uriyu * * * * * * * * * Program of January 3, 2003 Michael Hingson  The quality of today's program is one of the principal reasons I am excited to come to Friday Rotary meetings. Sure we have some duds, but meetings like today's make up for them. Michael Hingson, 52 years old, has been blind from birth. He has always received his guide dogs, a necessity for a blind person to conduct a "normal life" from Guide Dogs For the Blind in Marin County. And from his biography a normal life it has been, until recently. His companion is a yellow Labrador guide dog named Roselle. He received a masters degree in physics from U. C. Irvine - where "academic achievements are more important than athletic prowess" to quote President Dave. Mr. Hingson then went onto a long career in sales with Quantum Data Protection Devices. He is also a former member of the Calif. State Guide Dog Board and a member of the national Federation of the Blind. To start his talk he said "For many people, it takes a near death experience, to seriously reevaluate their lives, which is what happened to me over the last 16 months". Like most "normal" people he was wrapped up in making a living for his family and had little time to contemplate whether his life's work was still fulfilling. That all changed at 8:45 EST, September 11, 2001. You see he was living at the time in New Jersey and working on the 78th floor of World Trade Center Tower one and he was at work this fateful day. Having been raised in Calif. He was used to earthquakes and when the first plane hit tower one, it felt like one, except for one difference. Earthquakes shake from side to side, but this motion was only in one direction as the building tipped violently to one side as it absorbed the enormous impact of tons of kerosene and aluminum. When the building returned upright, Mr. Hingson grasped for the guide collar on his dog Roselle and moved under the nearest doorway frame. As debris fell from the windows 12 floors above it was obvious that this had not been an earthquake. Michael has faith and he asked God for his guidance and his help to stay calm. He remembered to never use elevators in an emergency from his port authority training classes. And calm they remained as he, Roselle and his friend David descended from the 78th floor. David to distract themselves shouted out the floor numbers as they passed the 59th, the 40th, the 30th and so forth until they reached to lobby of the building. As they descended they passed firefighters running up the stairs, who, surprisingly, always asked how they were doing despite having hundreds of pounds of gear on their backs. They did not make it out that day. Rather than celebrate the bravery a sacrifice of these people with a moment of silence, as is so common, Michael preferred a round of applause and we proudly obliged. At 09:45AM they entered the lobby and were ushered out onto the shopping plaza. Once outside they noticed that tower two was also burning which didn't coincide with their theory of what had happened. They immediately ran for David's car, which was parked 100 yards from tower two, when they heard a deep, thunderous, rumbling noise. Tower two was collapsing. A thick asphyxiating cloud of dust engulfed them. He again consulted his maker asking how he could let them escape the building only to let them die. Again god responded, "stay calm, trust me". They ducked into a subway entrance struggling to breath and see. A woman in the distance shouted, "I cannot see". Michael responded, "I am blind, but my dog can see - let us lead you - and Roselle did. Shortly afterward a police officer yelled at them to leave the subway which they promptly did. To their horror, they again heard that same deep, thunderous noise as tower one began to fall. Then the choking cloud chased them up the street as it had before. As time passed they reached a friend's apartment, where Michael called his wife to say that he had escaped. At 7:00 that evening he arrived home in New Jersey to his wife and family. The experience was, of course, the definition of surreal. Having a salesman's intrinsic sense of the interesting, he immediately contacted the organization that so much of his "normal life" was indebted to - and that is "Guide Dogs For The Blind" to tell them the story. And shortly afterwards he was being asked to appear on "Good Morning America" and almost every other show you can imagine as the media pounced on the story like a starving animal on fresh meat. He says "Most of the time we read, and we hear, and we see, that you are not to trust; you are not to work together as one; I say that today trust is needed more than ever. In many ways, it is the only thing of true value in this world". And this is said by a blind man who has learned to trust from a dog named Roselle. The experience did change this mans life. He quit his job, moved back to California and became the public affairs spokesperson for the organization that has been, and is now the central focus of his life. |
