Mens Tennis Forums banner

Andy the "Hero"

8K views 175 replies 16 participants last post by  J. Corwin 
#1 ·
If we can start threads for silly pictures and names of cereal I think we can start one for this.
------
Andy's Recount of Last Night's Fire to Come Shortly
by: webmaster


5/1/2004 -- AR.com spoke with Andy shortly after the incident in Rome. As reports have indicated, Andy suffered no injuries, but is slightly shell-shocked by what took place. His recount of the story is mind-boggling, and his actions were truly heroic. Stay tuned as we will be providing much more information, including first-hand description by Andy himself.
 
#52 ·
Nah! I'd rather think that he called his mom so that if she heard anything she wouldn't be worried than to think that he needed her reassurance to get through it. Man, he's 22 years old and earning his own living. I think he can handle a crisis without his mommy.
 
#53 ·
Deb, he's either calm, cool, and collected, or he wants his mommy. I don't see how it can be both.
exactly lol

Sure it can. You can have your head about you but still want to be comforted by a familiar voice, just someone to reassure you as you try to do the right thing. I've certainly been in that situation before! Plus it didn't say he was talking the *whole* time, I think Karen exaggerated some of the story, don't you? LOL
yeah but he cant catch someone while talkin on the cell phone
 
#58 ·
star said:
Nah! I'd rather think that he called his mom so that if she heard anything she wouldn't be worried than to think that he needed her reassurance to get through it. Man, he's 22 years old and earning his own living. I think he can handle a crisis without his mommy.
Maybe.... but in that case he could certainly have been calm and still talking to her lol. Maybe she wanted to stay on the phone with him because it comforted HER. I'm almost 22 as well and basically on my own and I would absolutely still want my mommy in a crisis, even though I'd most likely know what to do on my own. Andy's a mama's boy through-and-through, he just puts on a tough exterior on the court ;)

But anyway, any article that uses phrases like "dropped like an albatross" - I'm not so sure I can take what it says 100% seriously anyway so I guess that's why I didn't read too much into the little details it described.
 
#59 ·
On Sept. 11 the first thing I thought was to call my mom so she wouldn't freak out when she saw it on TV. (turns out the phone lines were completely jammed so it took hours to get through, but that's another story)...

So perhaps Roddick's response was similar...
 
#61 ·
MisterQ said:
On Sept. 11 the first thing I thought was to call my mom so she wouldn't freak out when she saw it on TV. (turns out the phone lines were completely jammed so it took hours to get through, but that's another story)...
Same here, Q. I was trying to call people for hours and couldn't get through. My family was panicking because they'd been trying to call me and didn't know if I got to work or not (my office is a block away from WTC).

That day was just too surreal.
 
#63 ·
Carito_90 said:
were you near the twin towers then?
I probably live about 4 miles away from them. I had a job interview that day at 10:30am, and the subway I was going to take ran right UNDER the towers. It's one of the stations that collapsed when the towers came down. I saw the towers burning from Brooklyn and everyone was just staring in disbelief. But of course there is no precedent for such a thing, so I got on the subway anyway. We sat in the station for about 10 minutes and then the conductor came around and said that all the trains in the city had been stopped. I feel so fortunate that A) someone was wise enough to halt the trains (i'm sure no one thought the building would come down and B) I am always late ;)
 
#64 ·
B) I am always late
ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS GOOD!

i remember sept 11...i didn't find out until i came home from school which was at like 3-ish. my mom was crying and my brother was just in disbelief so i was just wondering what the hell was going on. then i saw what happened at i was just in shock. my mom was so upset that she couldnt call any of our friends in new york (we have a lot of em there since we lived there for 6 years) so you can just imagine how she was.
 
#65 ·
tangerine_dream said:
Same here, Q. I was trying to call people for hours and couldn't get through. My family was panicking because they'd been trying to call me and didn't know if I got to work or not (my office is a block away from WTC).

That day was just too surreal.
wow, do you still work there? that must be tough, because there is no ignoring it...

I remember being around Wall Street a couple of weeks after the event. absolutely surreal scene.
 
#66 ·
bunk18bsb said:
Maybe.... but in that case he could certainly have been calm and still talking to her lol. Maybe she wanted to stay on the phone with him because it comforted HER. I'm almost 22 as well and basically on my own and I would absolutely still want my mommy in a crisis, even though I'd most likely know what to do on my own. Andy's a mama's boy through-and-through, he just puts on a tough exterior on the court ;)

But anyway, any article that uses phrases like "dropped like an albatross" - I'm not so sure I can take what it says 100% seriously anyway so I guess that's why I didn't read too much into the little details it described.
Deb, you are still in school and aren't supporting yourself. Big difference.

What evidence do you have that Andy is a mama's boy? I hope he's not. I mean I'm sure he loves his mother and everything, but a mama's boy? That sounds so weak.
 
#67 ·
Ahhhhh Mister Q and Tangy... :hug: :hug:

Of course you called your families to reassure them. They must have been so frightened and insecure.

I knew someone who was in New York then. There was no reason for him to call me, but I was happy when I finally got word that he was ok. He was at NYU at the time.
 
#68 ·
star you take things so literally lol! Maybe we have different opinions of what a mama's boy is, I don't think it's weak, I think it's cute and a nice quality in a guy. and I've had to deal with situations where I had to be mature and act. And I was able to take care of it and stay calm and do what I needed to do, but I still wanted to hug my mom.

Here's Brad's Story:

5.2.2004 - bradgilberttennis.com

In all the years that I’ve stayed in hotels on the tour I’ve never been involved in a more hairier scene than our first night in Rome. I’d gotten up at 4:37AM to go down to the gym, but they told me that it was closed until 6:00AM. So I went back to sleep and at about 5:30AM I wake up and look out the window and I think to myself “man it’s foggier here than in San Fran.”

But when I got closer and looked out I saw flames shooting up. I’m thinking Holy sh—t time to bail. I put on my shoes and I’m out the door. All I could see was black smoke. I went back into my room and grabbed a towel to cover my face. I started pounding on doors. I then hear this old man screaming for help. I grabbed the old man, as he was bent over and about to go down. I yanked him up and kept pounding on doors, trying to find the stairs. Once we got to the elevator I knew that we were close. We got to the staircase and bolted down to the first floor and made it out into the street.

There’s a bunch of people already standing in the street, but I don’t see Andy. I called out for him, nothing…Everyone’s is asking me “Where is Andy” I was staying on the 7th floor. Andy was on the 6th floor and his room had a deck.

Luckily Andy had woken up at 5:30AM to go the bathroom. He opens his door and same thing, thick black smoke. So he goes immediately to his balcony. It was a good thing for that deck because Schalken and his wife had to climb out of their room so they could get close to his deck. They had to jump to the balcony; the kid caught them and like four other people who had no other escape route.

About 37 minutes later they were all safely crane lifted off the kid’s deck. Andy was the last one evacuated from that balcony. He really showed his true character in the moment of crisis.

Mirnyi lost everything; he and his girlfriend had only their robes. Safin and Lundren looked totally haggard, as did Andy and many others. We to had to shower for 45 minutes to get all of the black off of us.

It hit him hard when he went back up to his room, when he saw how black the room was and how most everything was black. We just looked at each other. It was one of the few times I had nothing to say.

It was very scary stuff. It makes you realize a lot of things. It puts the game in perspective. It reminds me to be grateful and appreciate every breath. Today I wake up and I’m Chipper Jones.
 
#70 · (Edited)
MisterQ said:
wow, do you still work there? that must be tough, because there is no ignoring it...

I remember being around Wall Street a couple of weeks after the event. absolutely surreal scene.
Oh yes. We are still here. The office was closed for a week. When I returned to work it looked like Beruit :eek: Tanks in the street....soldiers carrying weapons asking for all kinds of ID....dust all over the place. Quite an experience. They were passing out cloth masks to help people avoid breathing in the toxins from the building. (everybody was doing the Michael Jackson look for a week; :lol: I still have mine) That smell the building emitted lasted for weeks. If there was a good breeze, you could actually smell the building burning all the way uptown. Q, you must've smelled that building all day and night long! BTW, did you register with the WTC Health Registry?

Wall Street is back to normal now. If anything, it's actually much busier down here with all the tourists. We never had this many tourists in the area until after 9/11. :eek:

PS - I might add here that the only place that was open for lunch business was Starbucks. Those places are like cockroaches. No thermonuclear war or airborne disease will ever wipe them out. :eek:
 
#72 ·
tangerine_dream said:
That smell the building emitted lasted for weeks. If there was a good breeze, you could actually smell the building burning all the way uptown. Q, you must've smelled that building all day and night long! BTW, did you register with the WTC Health Registry?

PS - I might add here that the only place that was open for lunch business was Starbucks. Those places are like cockroaches. No thermonuclear war or airborne disease will ever wipe them out. :eek:

LOL at the roach analogy! Picturing a grande plutonium soy frappucino. ;)

I did not register with the Health Registry. perhaps I should have. on 9-11 it was literally snowing debris and dust and bits of paper in my neighborhood. satellite photos show the cloud blowing right over me. I had to shut all the windows... and yeah, that smell was horrific. that's something the TV cameras cannot capture. :sad:

9-11 satellite photo
 
#74 ·
There's no deadline to register with the Health Registry, Q. You should sign up because you breathed that stuff in 24/7 for weeks.

star said:
I saw video clips of the debris that fell on Brooklyn. One man gathered all the papers and read them.. ...
All of my Brooklyn friends carry a memento with them that blew in from the buildings: business cards with the edges burned; grocery lists; letterhead forms; baby pictures; anything they found they kept. Total strangers' belongings.

The business card with the seared edges is the one memento that made me lose it. :sad:
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top