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CTP (S3ESepSpecial3) Blind on 9/11: A Survivor's Tale

• Joseph M. Lenard | Christian Activist & Author in Politics

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CTP (S3ESepSpecial3) Blind on 9/11: A Survivor's Tale
Exploring more of the fascinating intersection of Activism, Community Engagement, Faith / Religion, Human Nature, Politics, Social Issues, and beyond   
Michael Hingson shares his remarkable journey as a blind 9/11 survivor who escaped from the 78th floor of the World Trade Center's Tower One and how this experience shaped his understanding of fear, preparation, and resilience.
• Born blind and told by doctors he would never contribute to society
• Earned a master's degree in physics despite 70% unemployment rate among blind people
• Opened an office in World Trade Center Tower One in August 2000
• Survived 9/11 by using his detailed knowledge of the building's layout and emergency procedures
• Published three books including NY Times bestseller "Thunderdog" with foreword by Larry King
• Advocates for true inclusion of people with disabilities in diversity conversations
• Teaches that fear can be controlled and used as a motivational tool rather than something that overwhelms us
• Suggests everyone has disabilities, but some are more visible or accommodated than others
• Hosts "Unstoppable Mindset" podcast about inclusion, diversity and the unexpected
Find Michael's books and speaking information at michaelhingson.com or email speaker@michaelhingson.com.


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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Constitutionalist Politics Podcast, aka CTP. I am your host, joseph M Leonard, and that's L-E-N-A-R-D. Ctp is your no-muss, no-fuss, just me, you and occasional guest-type podcast. Really appreciate you tuning in. As Graham Norton will say, let's get on with the show. Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Christitutionalist Podcast. Joining me today is Michael Hingson, h-i-n-g-s-o-n. And, of course, for those viewing behind the scenes video that will be added in post on a sprawl at the bottom, so you won't have to oh, excuse me, won't have to remember it can see it on the screen. And for those of you watching behind the screens, I'm wearing my I Remember, never Forget 9-11 shirt because we are recording on August the 5th. But this show will air Thursday, september 11th, and it will become apparent why. Very shortly Now, with all that out of the way, why very shortly Now, with all that out of the way. Welcome to the show, michael Higson.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, it's good to be here, yes.

Speaker 1:

So before we get into a whole lot, let's do the proverbial usual first where were you born and raised and where are you now? Kind of stuff.

Speaker 2:

I was born in Chicago, illinois, and lived there for five years. And about four months after being born and I was born two months premature it was discovered that I was blind and the doctors told my parents that they ought to send me off to some home, because no blind child could ever grow up to be any kind of a contributor to society and I would just be a drain. And my parents said absolutely, you're wrong. And so they brought me up with that attitude.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no child would ever amount to anything if they had parents with the attitude they were trying to be convinced of.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. After college, including getting a master's degree in physics and a secondary teaching credential, I was fortunate enough to actually be able to join the workforce, which is something a lot of blind people don't have that opportunity to do because of the fact that most people don't think blind people can work, so we don't ever get the opportunity. I was hired by a blindness organization to be involved in some work and that led to other jobs that kept me in the workforce, which was great. But the bottom line is that I lived in an environment and it's still somewhat true today where the unemployment rate among employable blind people was close to 70%, that's 7-0%. And again, it's not that we can't work, it's that people don't think we can, and so we don't get the opportunity.

Speaker 1:

Exactly. I mean, it depends on the job. Obviously, you're not going to be a welder.

Speaker 2:

I don't know why that's obvious. I know blind people who are.

Speaker 1:

Oh really, wow, Okay, well, totally blind. I mean, there's degrees of blindness.

Speaker 2:

Sure, it comes down to the fact that people think eyesight's the only game in town, and it's not. There are other ways to do things, and so the bottom line is that most everything that sighted people can do blind people can do. We may not do it exactly the same way, but we can do it, and the fact of the matter is that people need to get over the fact of thinking that eyesight is the only way you do stuff.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I didn't have that thinking, but yet you caught me in a I didn't think they could do it thing.

Speaker 2:

So anyway, I've been very fortunate. So today, after having lived in other parts of the United States and so on, I am actually back in Southern California, about 55 miles from where I grew up, in Palmdale. I now live in a town called Victorville and I'm having fun and then it's having fun good, so palmdale hasn't been completely destroyed, like whole other parts of california. Have we're, not we're? We're far enough away from the fire areas.

Speaker 1:

That know we're okay right now yeah, well, I I don't just mean that, I also mean economically due to bad policy. But yeah, I didn't necessarily mean to go down that rabbit hole, but at any rate, indeed you. However, again why this will be airing on 9-11, not strictly related to that, but you are a 9-11 survivor, related to that, but you are a 9-11 survivor. And before we get into that, I want to say 9-11, people is not an anniversary. Anniversaries are for happy things, like if you're still married after 50 years. Well, you know, may not be happily married still after 50 years, but in general you get my point that would be considered a happy anniversary thing.

Speaker 1:

9-11 is a somber remembrance day, like Memorial Day. Fourth of July is a mixed bag. We are celebratory of our independence, but yet it's a somber remembrance of those who gave their blood and treasure for us to be an independent nature. So I just want to get that. You know we've got to be a little more careful in our choice of language at time's point. But indeed, how in the world did you land up there on that day 24 years ago when we got a whole generation of kids born since then that don't know life before it?

Speaker 2:

I. One of the jobs that I had was selling products as a reseller for other companies that made them, and one of the companies that made products that we sold like what I was doing, and they asked me to go to work for them, which I did, and they wanted me to, among other things, open an office for them in New York City, and the reason they wanted the office was because Wall Street firms like to have actual manufacturers have a representation in the city, not just their reseller people. So, anyway, I was hired to open an office and, after looking and evaluating options, ended up opening the office on the 78th floor of Tower One of the World Trade Center and we opened the office in August of 2000. And so, after opening the office and we started moving in and so on, one of the things that I did as the leader of the office this gets back to doing things differently than sighted people do One of the things that I knew that I had to be able to do was to perform the same tasks that any leader of an office would. So I spent a lot of time learning all about the World Trade Center where things were what the emergency evacuation procedures were. Where the emergency exits were, what the emergency evacuation procedures were, where the emergency exits were, what all the rules and regulations were, as well as learning various things about offices and where restaurants were, and all that.

Speaker 2:

And I did all that because if, for example, we were going to have somebody in the office talking with us about they're buying our product and we wanted to go to lunch, I couldn't say, oh, I can't get anywhere because I'm blind. I needed to be able to say where do you want to go? Okay, well, I can take you there and take them, and take them. And if I couldn't do that and I said, well, I don't know how to get anywhere, I'm blind, someone's going to have to lead me. How's it going to work two hours later, when we're off negotiating a multimillion dollar contract? No, I needed to do all of that. But the bottom line is, after doing all that, what that created in me although I never thought about it at the time was a mindset that said you know what to do if there's an emergency. You know what to do to get around the World Trade Center.

Speaker 1:

And so, on September 11th, that mindset kicked in yeah, which was critical, more so than other standard buildings, as an exoskeletal building which was not traditional to most other buildings, which made the interior more open but indeed then therefore different in the way it operated to most other standard buildings.

Speaker 2:

No, not really, because there were two very tall towers that were just like any other office building.

Speaker 1:

Well, they still had elevators and stairs and yeah.

Speaker 2:

And there was a major shopping mall on the first floor between the towers. I've been there. Yeah, and there was a major shopping mall on the first floor between the towers.

Speaker 1:

I've been there, yeah.

Speaker 2:

It doesn't matter what the building was. It's all easy to learn and that's what I did.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I don't want to really go on much about 9-11. I People either know or they don't know. Either they know or they don't want to know. Really.

Speaker 2:

We have a whole new generation that doesn't know because they weren't around. So one of the things that happened to me after September 11th is the media got my story and we became pretty visible and then people started calling and saying, gee, would you come and talk to us? When I hire you to come and tell us what we should learn about September 11th, the lessons we should learn, we want to hear your story, and so for the past 23 and a half years that's what I've been doing is talking about September 11th what happened, why it happened and why I was able to escape.

Speaker 1:

And the reality of all that is that we now do live with a generation that has no knowledge of it directly, because they weren't alive then or they were too young to remember on TV again. But yeah, whether they've gone into the nitty gritty details of the hows, the whys and the whatnots and blah, blah, blah, yeah, is another thing. But I hope people learn from what you said. Our need to be awake, aware, alert of our surroundings and know things is not a blind or sighted thing. I, in my Terror Strikes Coming Soon to a City Near you book, talk about not wanting people to be paranoid, but far too many are foolishly ostriches and pay no attention to anything. You've got to at least ahead of time, recognize bad things happen at time to good people, so that fateful day, the stay in place, normal situational thing that made sense, actually cost lives.

Speaker 1:

And I've got an article called Fight, flight or Fade. Like the Ariana Grande concert I don't know if you're familiar right Commotion happening at one end of the arena. You have to think in fractions of a second, not just panic, because more people were injured and died in the stampede. Panic out than did because of the incident. You fight if you can and remotely trained well enough to do so or have a weapon to do so. Blight only if it's a realistic, good option that you're indeed not going to be in an idiotic sheeple stampede where people die because of that paid or the stay-in-place option is still a good option at times to hide from the threat and avoid both either the threat or, again, the bad part of panic. I would think that you're saying you understood that mindset ahead and would agree. Everyone needs to have a thinker versus a panicker mindset and at least pay attention to some things ahead of time, not wait till the shit hits the fan.

Speaker 2:

Yes, In my most recent book, live Like a Guide Dog, which was published last year, we talk all about learning to control fear, because we can. Fear doesn't need to be something that overwhelms us or, as I put it, blinds us. Fear is something that we can learn to utilize as a very powerful tool and motivator to help us function and deal with what's going on around us. Most of the people who perished on September 11th died because they wouldn't have been able to survive. They were above where the planes hit. Well over 90% of the people were above where the planes hit, and so they had no way to escape anyway, and the reality is that that is so unfortunate, but it nevertheless happened. But the fact is that when we were going down the stairs, I and a few other people did help people stay focused, so we didn't have panic on the stairs, because we knew, if we allowed panic to ensue on the stairs, that nobody would get out alive.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, exactly, and so we kept everyone focused and we were able to get out.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that's great. Thankfully as many did, because again the order of the day and the time was shelter in place.

Speaker 2:

But given past precedent it would have normally made sense, but that day it did not Well, okay, but the shelter in place really was that the people in Tower 2 were told to stay in place because nothing happened to Tower 2. It only happened to Tower 1. And of course that worked until Tower 2 was struck and then that order was gone. But the shelter in place, nobody to my knowledge in Tower 1 was ever told to shelter in place. Nobody to my knowledge in tower one was ever told to shelter in place. Okay, because tower one was struck and then the order was okay, but that didn't affect tower two, you guys are okay, which worked until what? 905 or so, right in the morning when Tower 2 was hit.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's part of the fog of a war, part of fog of a disaster, right, it's. My understanding, which indeed could have very well been wrong in your telling me, is that even some in Tower 1 were told to shelter in place so as to not impede first responders getting in and then leading a careful, coordinated evacuation of floors not currently affected, because they certainly at that time still didn't expect the towers, because of the ectoskeletal design, to have been wedged out like someone chopping into a tree and them collapsing and pancaking down like a parking garage and no people. It is not the first time in history that a building has pancaked panicked.

Speaker 1:

Well, tower One collapsed, not because directly that the airplane hit it, but because 26,000 pounds of jet fuel exploded and much more seriously, damaged the infrastructure of the building Of the ectoskeletal that has less internal support.

Speaker 2:

Yes, If the plane had hit the building and had not been full of jet fuel, it wouldn't have collapsed, but the reality is that all that jet fuel caused it to do what it did, so it is an issue.

Speaker 1:

And for the truthers out there that don't understand yes, you don't have to actually fully melt steel. You can heat it and weaken it and it therefore can collapse. You don't have to this notion the first time in history, steel in a building melted. That's not what happened. You don't have to melt it, you just have to weaken it. But again, I don't want to relitigate all that stuff. I wanted to just cover enough of it for people to understand. You are indeed primarily here, but this book wouldn't have occurred without the other book, which was Thunderdog. Right, but this book being I've lost track of it on my Live Like a Guide Dog, which I love the content. Somebody else wrote a book about business from their dog's perspective and when you read it and think about it it makes a lot of sense. As I believe this book makes a lot of sense, tell us a little bit more about the genesis of that. I take it it's the years of Doing 9-11 speaking kind of brought about the genesis. Christian show, pun intended. The genesis of this book, yes.

Speaker 2:

Well, what happened was when the pandemic occurred in 2020, I realized that I had been talking for quite a while about what happened and how I was able to get out, but I never taught people how they could learn to control fear and be able to function when something unexpected happened and sort of made references to it, like in Thunderdog, talking about the fact that we ought to learn not to worry about the things that we can't control. Focus on the things that we can and the rest will take care of it.

Speaker 1:

People on the behind-the-scenes video see me vociferously shaking my head. Yes, to your comment.

Speaker 2:

So focusing on what you can control and leaving the rest alone, well, anyway, so I decided we needed to deal with that and kind of the book came out of that, and I collaborated with another person, carrie Wyatt Kent. The two of us wrote it together. I love collaborations and Live Like a Guide Dog. True stories from a blind man and his dogs about being Brave, Overcoming Adversity and Moving Forward in Faith was published last August by Tyndale House, and so it is out there for people to read as well as, as you said, thunderdog. And then we also wrote a children's book along the way called Running with Roselle, which is more for kids, teaching them about me growing up and Roselle growing up and how we met much more than September 11th. So there are three books all together.

Speaker 1:

Good. Thank you for adding that in, and this won't mean much to most in the audience and I'm glad you and I both know Mickey, which is how we've made our connection so that we could have this discussion today. Do you have a next project you're planning?

Speaker 2:

No other books. At the moment I am continuing to travel and speak and so looking for speaking engagements. So if anybody needs a speaker to come and speak at an event and motivate people, I would love to speak with them. I'm easy to reach, it's michaelhingsoncom, m-i-c-h-a-e-l-h-i-n-g-s-o-ncom or email. Speaker at michaelhingsoncom. But right now, primarily speaking, and also I do a podcast called Unstoppable Mindset, where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet, and it's worded that way very deliberately, because if you talk to the average person who talks about diversity and so on, they never deal with disabilities and so they're not as inclusive as they ought to be. I've had some of them say well, disabilities don't really come under diversity, because it's more a social justice thing, and that's a crock of bunk.

Speaker 1:

I agree with you.

Speaker 2:

Disabilities is one of the top. You know it's a large minority. According to the Center for Disease Control, 25% of all people have a disability. Now, I disagree with that. I think 100% of people have a disability. The difference between you and me is that I happen to be light independent and you're light dependent. If the lights go out, you're in a world of hurt until you get another light source. Thomas Edison created light on demand for you light dependent people but it doesn't change the fact that, even though your disability is mostly covered up, it is still there.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and for the record, because sadly we don't teach history. No, Thomas Edison did not invent the light bulb, he perfected it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's always that discussion. Just like, henry.

Speaker 1:

Ford didn't invent the car Mercedes did?

Speaker 2:

He created the assembly line. But, the reality is that you know and there are those who say the Wright brothers didn't invent the airplane. Well, it's okay, it doesn't matter. The bottom line is that you guys have a mechanism that we have focused a lot of time perfecting so that you have light on demand, but it doesn't change the fact that you still have a disability and change the fact that you still have a disability.

Speaker 1:

Yeah well, I myself have several other health ailments that prevent me from working a normal job, so I myself am no longer in the IT career job that I used to have and wish I still did. So, yeah, I mean, not all disabilities are created equal, obviously, but, as you said, anyone and everyone with a disability is capable of things. We've got to stop trying to hold them back. Right, absolutely, right, absolutely. And, of course, time flies. Of course, although we got started, you came on early, but we got started a little later because my machine decided to freeze up and I had to reboot.

Speaker 2:

Ah tech.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, a former IT guy Microsoft WingSlow 11. Oh, horrible, horrible. They fired most of the people who actually knew how to code and knew their code, and now every time they pretend to fix one thing, they break 10 other things. Windows 10 worked great for me. I was dumb enough to let them talk me into upgrading to Windows 11. Now, if you buy a computer with Windows 11 preloaded, it probably works fine also, but don't ever upgrade to Windows 11, is my advice to people. I've got another machine that's got Windows 10 perfectly fine, no issues with it whatsoever. But at any rate, yeah, another rabbit hole. Certainly didn't intend to go down, but you answered the obvious in closing question. If people want to find you, where can they, and you've already said speaker at michaelhingstoncom or Michael Hingson, michael spelled traditionally Hingson, h-i-g-s-o-n.

Speaker 2:

H-I-N-G-S-O-N.

Speaker 1:

What did I say you?

Speaker 2:

said H-I-G. You had H-I-G, h-i-n-g-s-o-ncom.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for the correction. Yeah, I'll be sure to type it right on the screen when that time comes. That'll be the important part For the benefit of the transcript. Those who may read it and or those listening on audio-only 25 platforms, won't see the scrawl at the bottom of the video. That is M-I-C-H-A-E-L-H-I-N-G-S-O-Ncom. There you go.

Speaker 1:

I'll say it slower so I don't screw it up. Thank you, michael, for coming by. You know I will say I'm sorry for all that you landed to have to go through that day, but of course I had nothing to do with it. It doesn't make me any less sad that it happened to you and so many others, but it's the reality we have to deal with now. Yes, yeah.

Speaker 2:

You know we all deal with what we have to deal with to deal with.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and as you said, as I try to preach people, be awake and not paranoid, but awake and alert. Bad things are always going to occasionally happen to good people and you have to at least resolve in advance to be a thinker, not a panicker, or you take yourself from the frying pan into the fire, sometimes of your own lack of thinking. Thank you again, michael. Say hello to Mickey for me. Next time you talk to him and I'm sure you're on to other broadcasts Give the three books again. I want you to look them up.

Speaker 2:

So Thunderdog, the True Story of a Blind man and His Guide Dog and the Triumph of Trust at Ground Zero, was published in 2011. It actually was a New York Times bestseller. The foreword was written by Larry King, which was a great honor.

Speaker 1:

Oh wow, that's a nice tidbit yeah.

Speaker 2:

And late 2013,. Running with Roselle. Roselle was the guide dog who was with me in the World Trade Center. That was published, and then last August, now a year ago my gosh, just well, not quite a year ago It'll be a year on the 21st. Anyway, live Like a Guide Dog. True Stories from a Blind man and His Dogs About being Brave, overcoming Adversity and Moving Forward in Faith was published.

Speaker 2:

So those are the three books and we really appreciate people reading them and if you do read any of them, go back to Amazon, if you would, and give them a review. We really appreciate reviews and people who are interested in the books are more interested when they see good reviews, so we hope that people will do that.

Speaker 1:

As an author myself and I wrote how to Write a Book and Get it Pub published. One of the things I talk about is, sadly, a lot of people may buy your book, may like your book, but don't ever come people, but people that like your stuff don't often sadly think to indeed give us those good reviews that we need on Amazon and Goodreads and Barnes, noble and books. In the weird it's a small world six degrees of separation thing. You mentioned Larry King. I met him too in real life in Vegas at a Don Rickles show where, of course, rickles laid into him. I was only a few seats over from Larry King. So it's weird how the six degrees of separation thing works on a trillions of people planet. Oh yeah, all right, thank you, michael. Take care, god bless.

Speaker 2:

God bless you be well.

Speaker 1:

Wait, wait, wait, wait. I made an error. Good thing. Wait, wait, I made an error. Good thing. I was lucky enough to catch what I said almost immediately after I said it incorrectly. For those of you viewing behind the scenes, quick reference, so I could get what they more or less officially say. I knew after saying trillions of people on the planet was way incorrect, that it was only in the billions, and indeed Google AI reports about 8.2 billion-ish in the billions, 8.2 billion-ish people. But I made the mistake. I figured I should correct the mistake while I'm thinking about it. Take care all, god bless. See you around. Please check out the book of Kennedy Bye-bye.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for having tuned in for Chris D'Attussion's Politics Show. If you haven't already, please check out my primary internationally available book, terror Strikes, coming soon to a city near you, available anywhere, books are sold. If you have locally run bookstores still near you, they can order it for you. And let me remind, over time the fancy high production items will come. But for now, for starters, it's just you as a very appreciated listener by me. All substance, no fluff, just straight to key discussion points. A show that looks at a variety of topics, mostly politics, through a Christian US constitutionalist lens. So again, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Take care, god bless, like and subscribe to Constitutionalist Politics Podcast and share episodes. We need your help.

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