It's Finally Here.......What You've All Been Waiting For...."PLUCKED FROM THE FIRE"

By John W. Kennedy, John Cockroft and Peter K. Johnson

September 11 begins as any other Tuesday for Stanley Praimnath, an assistant vice president of loan operations at Fuji Bank Limited in New York City. As is customary, he arrives at his desk on the 81st floor of the World Trade Center south tower by 8:30 a.m., before co-workers arrive. Here he spends time reading his Bible and praying.
"For some reason, I gave the Lord a little extra of myself that morning during prayer," says the 44-year-old Praimnath, who is also a deacon and Sunday school superintendent at Bethel Assembly of God in Queens, N.Y. "Over and over I said, ‘Lord, cover me and all my loved ones with Your precious blood.’ "

Stanley Praimnath and family

Fifteen minutes later, he is retrieving phone messages when a red-orange flash catches his eye. Outside his window, flames cough black smoke as a result of American Airlines Flight 11 plunging into the WTC north tower next door. Praimnath puts down the phone.
Watching fireballs fall to the ground, Praimnath tries unsuccessfully to call his boss in the north tower.
"Go, go, go," he says to Delise, a temporary worker, the only other person around. "Let’s get out of here."
They rush to the 78th-floor sky lobby to catch an express elevator down and are joined by three top Fuji executives. At ground level they are met by a security guard. "Don’t leave the building," the guard says. "A plane accidentally hit the north tower; you’ll be safer inside because of falling debris."

Praimnath and the executives return to the elevator, but Praimnath, sensing uneasiness in his soul, sends Delise home. The three other men head off to their departments. Praimnath will never see them again.
As Praimnath enters his office, his phone is ringing. A friend from Chicago asks Praimnath if he heard about the north tower being hit. He assures her all is fine.
But all is not fine. It is 9:03 a.m. and United Airlines Flight 175 is staring him in the face.
"Suddenly I see this big gray airplane with red letters on the wing and tail filling my window," Praimnath says. "It’s coming right at me."
Praimnath drops the phone and tucks under his desk in a fetal position as the plane obliterates the wall. The impact is a prolonged, gut-wrenching screech, a hideous, metallic roar. "It sounded like a huge steel cage being ripped apart," Praimnath recalls. Intense smoke and soot punctuate the agonizing explosion.

Then silence.

A flame interrupts the awful blackness, revealing a protruding aircraft wing blocking the exit only 20 feet away. I’m going to die, Praimnath thinks. Yet he cries out to God.
"Lord, help me," he prays, trying to stand. "I can’t do this by myself. I don’t want to die. I want to see my two little girls." Tears spill from squinting eyes as he realizes he is buried shoulder deep in debris. A nail pierces his right hand. Pain sears his body.

"Lord, You take control," Praimnath says aloud. Struggling to his feet, he is instantly showered by dust and debris anew as the ceiling gives way. Hands claw; legs thrash. Mercifully, his desperate plea seems momentarily answered.

"God gave me so much power in my body that I was able to shake everything off," Praimnath says.

Now standing, he begins to scream. "This is Stan from loans operation! Can anybody hear me? Help!"

Sparking electrical wires are the only sound in return. He must get out fast. Crawling away from the burning plane, Praimnath knows he has little time to escape. Cuts and bruises emerge as he crawls through hundreds of feet of the newly created war zone that had been his company a few moments earlier. Tearing off his bloodied, shredded white shirt to cover his nose and mouth, Praimnath focuses on breathing and finding an exit.
Miraculously, a light pierces the haze. "I see the light!" Praimnath screams, crawling toward what he thinks must be his guardian angel in these surreal surroundings.

"Come toward the light," a voice answers. "I’m here to help you."
A wall separates him from the stairwell and this unseen helper. "I can’t breathe," Praimnath says, the smell of jet fuel burning his nostrils. In desperation, he calls out to the voice with the flashlight. "Do you believe in Christ?" Praimnath asks.

"I don’t miss a Sunday going to church," the voice answers.
"Do you believe in Christ?" Praimnath presses.

"Yes."

The voice on the other side tells Praimnath that he must break a hole in the plasterboard wall to escape. Now Praimnath is certain he will perish.
"I’m going to write down my name and number," he tells the would-be rescuer. "Call my wife and daughters, and tell them I love them."

"No," comes the reply. "You are going to break through this wall."

Praimnath draws from his karate lessons and his Lord, rising with newfound determination. "I punched and punched until I saw a hole big enough for my arm and head," he says.

Praimnath’s deliverer turns out to be not a guardian angel but Brian Clark, a man in his early 60s who works at a brokerage firm on the 84th floor. Clark pulls him through the wall, and the men collapse in an embrace. Now it is Praimnath’s turn to be the strong one.

"I don’t think I can make it," Clark confesses.
"You saved my life," Praimnath says. "I owe you mine."
Arm in arm they descend, stopping on the 77th floor. A man with a broken back lies twisted in a pool of blood. A security guard tells Praimnath to send help. "This building is going to blow up," Praimnath replies.

"Steel does not burn," the guard says.
Praimnath and Clark continue their twisting descent, shrouded by dust now caked into mud by sprinklers as they near the bottom. They reach the concourse level. Eerie moans of building fragments falling are replaced abruptly by shouts of emergency workers and others scurrying about.

"Are there others?" a firefighter yells at Praimnath.

"Yes," he replies. The firefighters push past in a frantic ascent to find survivors. Glass is exploding; flaming debris is flying everywhere. Worse, human carnage carpets the floor, and more screaming bodies plummet to fatal crimson thuds outside ground-level windows. Fire surrounds the concourse. Praimnath knows he and his new friend are still in danger, but he is determined to survive.

"You’re going to have to soak yourself under the sprinklers," he informs Clark. "The only way out is through the fire."

Drenched and ready, the men burst through a flaming revolving door, stepping through a horrific spread of body parts and broken glass as they dash across the street toward historic Trinity Church two blocks away on Broadway.

"I have to get to the first church I see to thank God," Praimnath says. As he grasps the gate of the Episcopal church, the tower he just escaped collapses.

Praimnath hands Clark his business card as he pushes the older man into a passing vehicle, instructing the driver to take him to safety. Praimnath flags down another vehicle and is driven to the Brooklyn Bridge, where he joins a human tidal wave out of Manhattan. He is safe, and soon is reunited with his wife, Jennifer, and daughters, Stephanie, 8, and Caitlin, 4.

Praimnath’s account is but one example of how the terrorism that struck the United States on September 11 has impacted Assemblies of God churches and members throughout the country, both directly and indirectly. As with Praimnath, some inside the 110-story Twin Towers miraculously escaped before the buildings collapsed. Others felt led by the Lord to go to work later than normal. Several woke up ill that morning and phoned in sick.

Still more people have worked heroically and valiantly in rescue and relief efforts. Nationwide, churches opened their doors for services and prayer vigils. While some deeds of goodwill may never be known, this issue of the Pentecostal Evangel tells how some Assemblies of God believers played a role in facing the most widespread disaster in United States history..

Home Church: www.bethel-aog.org