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Mercyhurst Remembers 9/11
Mercyhurst alumna shares memories of Flight 93 recovery at Shanksville
She was there to pick up the pieces of their lives – 40 innocent human beings aboard United Flight 93 who had plummeted to their deaths in the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history on Sept. 11, 2001.
As she stood high atop a hill overlooking the vast meadow in Shanksville, Pa., where Flight 93 had crashed destroying the plane and killing all on board, the Mercyhurst College anthropology major was stunned by the serenity.
“I expected widespread fire, smoke and chaos, but the place seemed almost peaceful; it was surreal,” said Christina Rugh of Franklin, Pa., who 10 years ago was one of four Mercyhurst College students who had been enlisted to assist disaster recovery expert Dennis Dirkmaat, Ph.D., chair of applied forensic sciences at Mercyhurst and the lead forensic anthropologist at the scene.
She worked with Dirkmaat as if on autopilot, mapping the crash scene, flagging items for identification, and recovering remains. She was only 21, but she knew the respect that was due these victims, these few who had changed the lives of many. She recovered three wedding bands, the ID tags of a flight attendant, a piece of paper scrawled in Arabic, and the remains of men, women, fathers, mothers, children, the old, the young, even the unborn.
She would never forget that day.
Rugh had returned to her campus apartment from an “American Government” class and had barely begun watching television coverage of the terrorist hijacking of four commercial airliners that resulted in the deaths of more than 3,000 people when she got the call from Dirkmaat.
As she packed to leave, she watched the television replay of the assault on the Twin Towers, but she had no idea of the extraordinary acts of heroism that would emerge from that fateful day. Certainly, she was unaware of the 35 minutes during which crewmembers and passengers of Flight 93 had reached a collective and daring decision to try and regain the plane from four hijackers. Minutes later, all were dead, but the stories of those courageous individuals would be told over and over for generations, stories of hope, courage and patriotism in the face of evil.
“I knew I had to go; there was no question,” she said, looking back.
A senior at the time, she had assisted Dirkmaat once before at a plane crash involving a small, single-engine plane with one victim. Still, she felt confident that she had been well trained and, despite the enormity of the Shanksville disaster site, she wanted to help.
“When I found the three wedding bands, I felt as though I was responsible for being able to give back something special and personal to the families who had lost their loved ones,” she said.
Christina's ID tags, with her maiden name, from the site
When she discovered a piece of paper handwritten in Arabic, she showed it to one of the law enforcement authorities at the scene. When asked how she knew it to be Arabic, she told him that she had taken a course in Arabic and Islamic Cultures her freshman year at Mercyhurst and, although she couldn’t translate the words, she certainly recognized the language. There was one line in English, though, that they both could read: “F_ _ _ America!”
“I do remember that,” she said. “I also remember the following morning. The law enforcement officer told me that I should have dug a little deeper. When I asked why, he stated that they had discovered one of the terrorist’s journals nearby. I’d like to think that what I learned from that class I had as a freshman led to the finding of that important piece of information.”
Far and away, the memory that remains top of mind for her, though, is the day that she was working in the morgue and authorities brought in a female’s remains from the impact site.
“I can still see pieces of the black pants she was wearing and the white blouse with pink and orange checks,” Rugh said. “I remember returning home and finding out she had been about three months pregnant. I told myself then that if I ever had a daughter, I would name her in memory of that woman: ‘Lauren.’”
Christina's bracelet which she wears on every special occasion. It reads , 'We Remember 9-11-01 United We Stand'
But it wasn’t to be. During the next 10 years, Rugh would have three sons. Today, she is a stay-at-home mom who also works part time at the coroner’s office in Franklin.
She will mark the 10-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 tragedy with her two older sons by traveling to Shanksville to attend the dedication of the Flight 93 National Memorial.
“It is very important to me to go back on this anniversary and to be able to take my children and tell them not only my story, but the stories of those on the flight and the lessons it can teach,” Rugh said. “I’d like to think I am raising my boys in a way that those passengers who were parents or had been cheated of the opportunity to be parents would be proud of.”
But even as the 10th anniversary approaches, she is reminded that she doesn’t need an anniversary to remember.
“There’s not a day goes by that I don’t think of 9/11,” she said. “So often I’ll look at the clock and it will say 9:11 and I’ll think, ‘I was meant to be there.’”
She also wears a bracelet that Dirkmaat brought back to her from a one-year anniversary commemorative event at Shanksville.
“I wear it to every special occasion that I go to,” she said. “It's become a symbol of strength, and it's almost like I take a part of those passengers' spirit with me. It is my small way of carrying on their legacy.”
