Children Saved in Terror Attack

N E W  Y O R K, Sept. 24 -- The children who attend the Children's Discovery Center at 5 World Trade Center — not 100 yards from the twin towers — spend their days surrounded by blocks and books and finger paint, playing and learning. But on Sept. 11, their innocent world came crashing down.

"Our day care is glass from ceiling to floor, and I remember looking outside," says Karen Caycedo, one of the teachers at the center. "All I see is just debris and just the earth, and it felt like we were about to be swallowed."

Onica Sarjeant, another teacher at the center, had her 3-year-old son with her that morning. "When the first plane hit, I was outside, coming out of the train station, walking with my son," she recalls. "And I looked up and that's when I saw the building on fire, paper flying and smoke."

But she ran to work anyway, carrying her son, knowing she knew she would be needed.

Inside the center, Caycedo sprang into action. "You had to act and you had to act fast," she says. "It was scoop up the children and head out."

"We had infants, we had 4-month-olds, we had 3-year-olds," says Sarjeant. "Because there is no way a teacher is going walk away and one child is left there."

'We Just Ran'

The official evacuation plan would have taken them northwest to 7 World Trade Center, toward the danger. That building collapsed later that day.

Instead, they moved on instinct, first eastward and then northward, traveling close to 3 miles with 10 of the children. "We just ran," says Caycedo. "We went to the left, we went to the right."

Each teacher carried two babies, with the older children holding on and running to keep up. "We said, 'You have to run. Whatever you do, don't let go. If you fall down, we'll pick you up,'" says Sarjeant.

They ended up taking three shopping carts from a grocery store along the way to ferry the children the rest of the way. "And they thought it was a jolly ride," says Caycedo. "They were having the best time of their lives."