{"id":343067,"date":"2026-09-10T18:36:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T18:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/343067\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T18:36:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T18:36:17","slug":"nycs-youngest-9-11-witnesses-reveal-post-attack-traumas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/343067\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC’s youngest 9\/11 witnesses reveal post-attack traumas"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a cloud of white smoke barreled toward Alexandra Minaya on Sept. 11, 2001<\/a>, her 10-year-old body shook with fear.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was terrifying,\u201d Minaya, now 35, told The Post. \u201cWe all ran screaming into the school building.\u201d<\/p>\n

Minaya remembers the screams of her fellow classmates at P.S. 19 \u2014 the teachers shrieked, too, she said \u2014 as they sprinted inside from the school\u2019s outdoor playground, not yet understanding that just a few blocks away, the Twin Towers were crashing down.<\/p>\n

Alexandra Minaya is one of the many New York City children who witnessed the cataclysmic 9\/11 attacks. Tamara Beckwith\/NY Post<\/p>\n

She recalls being \u201ccovered in white ash,\u201d and how \u201cthe air smelled like burning chemicals.\u201d And even though she has never been formally diagnosed with any post-9\/11 health conditions<\/a>, Minaya, now a mom of one living in Brooklyn, remains haunted by the catastrophe 25 years later.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, as a kid, you look to the adults for support in times of chaos,\u201d explained Minaya. \u201cBut the adults surrounding me were crying and just as confused as us kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was so scared something bad had happened to my mom, but had no way to contact her,\u201d Minaya said. \u201cI didn\u2019t have a cell phone and landline phone service was down. I was helpless.\u201d<\/p>\n

Minaya is one of the thousands of New York City kids in the eye of the tumult, completely out of the reach of their parents, frantically stumbling around amid the confusion and chaos of what unfolded that morning 25 years ago, as the earth shook beneath their tiny feet, leaving them with indelible, invisible scars.<\/p>\n

Minaya remembers being scared, confused and worried for her pregnant mother\u2019s safety on September 11. Alexandra Minaya <\/p>\n

They are not among\u00a0the 3,000 victims<\/a>\u00a0who tragically lost their lives during the event, or the\u00a06,000 who\u2019ve since died<\/a>\u00a0due to 9\/11-related illnesses like lung cancer. <\/p>\n

But by witnessing the biggest terrorist attack in the world, these millennials now cope with anxiety, survivors\u2019 guilt and insomnia, even years after the disaster.<\/p>\n

On 9\/11, Diana Bejasa was a senior at the prestigious Stuyvesant High School in Lower Manhattan \u2014 mere blocks from the WTC. <\/p>\n

New Yorkers watched the Twin Towers fall on Sept. 11, 2001. AP<\/p>\n

Minaya says a gigantic gust of debris clouded the bright and sunny skies above her Lower Manhattan School on the morning of September 11, 2001, sending her into total dread. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Now 42, she says the tragedy still impacts her mental health, as she can still feel the concrete quaking as the first tower crumbled.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a full-body experience. Everything was shaking, lights flickering, then the electricity went out completely,\u201d said the Queens native, who now lives in Hawaii with her three-year-old daughter. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe administrators told us to leave the school. They sent us out onto the West Side Highway, and just yelled \u2018Walk!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Diana Bejasa (far left) says she stopped obsessing over the petty pangs of adolescence after the WTC attack. Diana Bejasa<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember looking around, seeing people covered in ash. As I was walking, I looked back and saw the second tower fall,\u201d she recalled. \u201cAnd I had this sudden feeling of \u2018Oh, f\u2013k! What\u2019s going on?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was in a weird world. I knew I was on the West Side Highway, I walked it every day, but it was unfamiliar. Everything was so different,\u201d she sighed. \u201cPeople were walking around looking like ghosts, their faces pale with shock and their bodies in white dust.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like many New York teens before that fateful day, Bejasa was excitedly reuniting with her friends after summer vacation and looking forward to a senior year filled with crushes, parties and college acceptance letters.<\/p>\n

Bejasa remembers being in a fugue state after watching the second tower fall. She was a high school senior. Laura Harstad Photography<\/p>\n

But on her hours-long trek from Manhattan to her home in Forest Hills \u2014 a roughly 10-mile hike she made on foot alone among a crowd of weeping locals \u2014 the gravity of the turmoil began to sink in.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t reach my parents on the phone. I couldn\u2019t find any of my friends. I dissociated. I completely shut down,\u201d said a tearful Bejasa, who admits she is still reeling from the ordeal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a spotty memory of certain things. I don\u2019t remember getting home. I know that hugging my parents and seeing my family was an important moment once I got home, but somehow I don\u2019t remember it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Owing to trauma, Bejasa has no recollection of getting home and being greeted by her worried parents, Mario and Eloisa, after witnessing the 9\/11 attack. Diana Bejasa<\/p>\n

She was ultimately diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) and depression. <\/p>\n

The conditions contributed, in part, to her making multiple career changes and only exacerbated the pangs of enduring a highly contentious divorce during pregnancy.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s also spent most of her adulthood grappling with survivor\u2019s remorse \u2014 especially when her status as a 9\/11 survivor gets challenged online.<\/p>\n

Now a life coach in Hawaii, Bejasa uses her 9\/11 experience to help others struggling in high-pressure situations. Laura Harstad Photography<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a long time, I didn\u2019t even identify as a survivor because there were people who\u2019d been through so much worse than I had,\u201d said Bejasa, who noted that some of her teachers and classmates were stricken with 9\/11-related cancers in later years. <\/p>\n

But she told The Post that after witnessing the horror firsthand, plus seeing her teachers and classmates battle 9\/11-related cancers in the aftermath, she\u2019s no longer afraid to own her story.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t until I was much older that I even felt like it was OK to identify as a survivor,\u201d said Bejasa, now a public speaker. \u201cI can honor and remember those who died that day, and still consider myself a survivor without discrediting anyone\u2019s experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vanessa Collazo says she\u2019s still haunted by the image of seeing the Twin Towers engulfed in flames from her classroom window. Olga Ginzburg for the N.Y. Post<\/p>\n

The tragic events left mental health scars on children across all five boroughs.<\/p>\n

Vanessa Collazos was a 10-year-old student just starting middle school at I.S. 73 in Maspeth when she peered out her classroom window and saw the towers engulfed in flames.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was so young and innocent. I thought someone had set off fireworks in the buildings,\u201d said Collazos, 35, who works in brand marketing. \u201cBut I realized something serious had happened when I turned and looked at my teacher. His face went pale and he walked right out of the room, left us alone, didn\u2019t say a word, and we never saw him again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collazos was 10 when she thought the engulfed Twin Towers were a fireworks show. Vanessa Collazos<\/p>\n

Alone and confused in a room full of her peers, Collazos sat in stunned silence until her great-grandmother arrived at the main office to pick her up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe waited hours and hours for my mom and uncle to come home from Midtown,\u201d Collazos told The Post. \u201cI turned on the TV and watched repeated footage of those people jumping to their deaths all day. I couldn\u2019t believe my eyes. I couldn\u2019t process it. I was in a state of shock.\u201d<\/p>\n

More coverage on the 25th Anniversary of 9\/11:<\/p>\n

That shock hasn\u2019t completely worn off in the decades since.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have anxiety and an elevated state of hypervigilance,\u201d said Collazos, attributing her condition largely to witnessing the horror as a child. She and her family temporarily relocated to Los Angeles following the disaster, desperate for distance from the trauma.<\/p>\n

Collazos and her family were so rattled, they briefly moved to the West Coast after 9\/11. Vanessa Collazos<\/p>\n

Now 35 and back in Queens, Collazos still experiences pangs of anxiety that she believes stem directly from experiencing 9\/11.<\/p>\n

\u201cI walk around wondering, \u2018Is everything going to be OK today? What can I control? Is that an abandoned bag in my subway car? Is it going to explode?\u2019\u201d she confessed. \u201cI didn\u2019t have airplane anxiety before 9\/11, but I do now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lesley Koeppel, a NYC psychotherapist<\/a>, told The Post that it\u2019s not uncommon for youngsters with eyewitness 9\/11 accounts to begin experiencing mental health woes as adults.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen something catastrophic happens, especially without warning, a child or adolescent can learn that the world is not predictable or safe. That\u2019s destabilizing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collazos says 9\/11 reshaped her worldview, but did not diminish her love of New York City. Olga Ginzburg for the N.Y. Post<\/p>\n

\u201cYears later, that can show up as anxiety, hypervigilance, a need for control, difficulty tolerating uncertainty or a more intense sensitivity to loss and danger,\u201d Koeppel continued. \u201cThe event may be long over, but a sense of stability can take much longer to catch up.\u201d <\/p>\n

To thousands of 9\/11 victims, witnesses and mourners, that sense of stability would be a welcomed luxury. For some, the lingering trauma, grief and unshakeable memory of the unprecedented pandemonium is just as palpable as it was on the day the world changed forever. <\/p>\n

But as the New York millennials who experienced 9\/11 as children continue to grapple with a painful past, some are dedicated to giving back to the city as adults.<\/p>\n

Minaya is now an emergency worker in Queens. Tamara Beckwith\/NY Post<\/p>\n

In Hawaii, Bejasa volunteers to help victims of natural disasters, including the recent wildfires in Oahu.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the selflessness of the first responders and everyday heroes at the epicenter of the chaos inspired Minaya to pursue a 14-year career in emergency healthcare services.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t always want to be an emergency responder, but I just knew that I wanted to help others in the same way those men and women did during and after 9\/11,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an absolute tragedy that I\u2019ll never forget, but it also united us as New Yorkers in a way I\u2019ll never forget, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

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