Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1504731
28 M PS E . O R G January 2, 2002, was my first day as a volunteer. Two weeks later, this man comes up to me and says, "I really like the way you interact with the rescue workers. You want a job?" I said, "I'm a sound editor in feature films, I don't know anything about destruction and excavation." And he said, "It's that mouth of yours. You could talk to anybody. I need that. I will train you." I thought, well, I don't have a movie to go back home to, so I'll just stay. I got trained. Two weeks later, I was in the pit of 9/11— Ground Zero for four months. I was a safety monitor in WTC6 and Tower 1. We had to monitor the confined space in World Trade Center 6. We had to work underneath the debris pile to tie back the slurry walls. They needed safety monitors to monitor the environment and the air so that it was safe for everyone. We also monitored freon gas, in case it was being released in the air where Tow- er 1 once stood. In May, we finished both contracts. I witnessed the atrocities of mankind. It was horrendous. It was a nightmare. The smell was hideous. But the people were so connect- ed. We were so close. Everybody was there for the same reason. It didn't matter where you were from or who you were. We were like a tight-knit family. For the last 21 years, I've gone to every Memorial on 9/11 in New York City. In June of 2002, I returned to Los Angeles. I ended up living with my dad and his wife in Long Beach. I was commuting every day looking for work. It was a real struggle after what I had just gone through. The ele- ments I had witnessed haunted me. Dave Whittaker heard my cry and hired me to supervise the Foley on a movie called Taxi (2004) with Queen Latifah and Jimmy Fallon. I will never be able to thank him enough for doing that for me, because he is the individual person that pulled me out of the Ground Zero nightmare and put me back in my career. I am forever grateful to him. The struggle with the 9/11 issues continues even today, and so I never was able to fulfill my dream of sound supervising. BF: Having worked with some of the best directors and sound su- Solange with her 1969 Jeep skeleton. Right: Solange in debris of her burned-down house. Below: burned-down house foundation chimney and debris. July 2007