BONNIE WELLER / Inquirer Staff
Elsie Goss-Caldwell with an image of son Kenneth Caldwell, killed on 9/11.
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Recalling horrors in the deadly details
Two went to give aid; one got a son’s final phone call.
"All of a sudden, he said, 'I have to get out of here because there's a bomb.' And he was gone. I never spoke to him again . . . never, never, ever.
Contact staff writer Jennifer Lin at 215-854-5659 or jlin@phillynews.com.
"That was it. I don't know if he hung up or got disconnected. All I know is, he was gone.
"I turned to [daughter] Keisha and said, 'We've got to go! We've got to find Kenny!'
"Then Natalie, Kenny's girlfriend, she called, and she was like, 'Mom, did you get a message from Kenny?'
"For some reason, when Kenny called her, it went directly to voice mail. And when I heard her message, he was so frantic, so scared, like he was running, and it was in his voice, like he was trying to get away.
Elsie's son Leon arrived the next day from graduate school in Nebraska. A caravan of seven cars headed to Manhattan.
"We sent some to New Jersey, and we made Kenny's apartment our central meeting place.
"We went to the armory, and there were lists of names. . . . I remember when we came outside, there were all these people standing across the street. They were just standing there. I thought, 'What are they doing?' And when we walked across the street, there were all these fliers for all these missing people . . . just thousands."
"At nighttime, I'd call his cell phone, and I would tell him I was coming to get him, and I'd tell him I loved him and not to be scared and that Mommy was coming.
". . . It would ring and go to voice mail, and his voice would come on, and I'd leave a message."
Contact staff writer Jennifer Lin at 215-854-5659 or jlin@phillynews.com.
