Chloe O'brien
28-09-2007, 20:54
Is 9/11 'survivor' a fake?
I saw this story on the news tonight. It's about a woman who claimed she was in the Twin Towers when it was attacked but has been found to be a fraud.
Victims of the 9/11 attacks have begun to doubt Tania Head's incredible story of her escape from one of the burning Twin Towers.
Head, who become the president of a non-profit group called the World Trade Centre Survivors' Network, helped counsel 9/11 victims and campaigned for donations.
However, she has now been removed from her position after none of the details of her account could be verified.
Ms Head claimed to have been badly burned on the 78th floor of the south tower but was saved by a man who died trying to rescue others.
She also said another victim had handed her his inscribed wedding ring before he died, which she later returned to his widow. And she claimed her husband, or in some accounts her fiancé, died in the north tower.
But, Merrill Lynch, where Ms Head told people she had worked, has no record of her employment. And the family of the man she said was her lover has denied ever hearing of her and discounted details of her story.
A statement on the WTCSN's website read: "Tania Head is no longer associated with the World Trade Centre Survivors' Network.
"Our organisation was created so that those affected by the terrorist attacks could help each other through crisis and its aftermath."
Ms Head has previously shown around former New York City Mayor and Republican presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani and Mayor Michael Bloomberg around Ground Zero.
In recent weeks, she has cancelled three interviews, citing her privacy and emotional turmoil, and declined to provide details to corroborate her story.
On the fifth anniversary of the attacks, Ms Head said: "It was like King Kong had come up and basically taken a chunk out of the north tower.
"Black smoke was billowing out into the blue sky. It was such a contrast, I'll never be able to forget it.
"I hit the marble wall. When I came to I was in terrible pain, like a million needles were sticking in me at once. I realised that my back and my arm were burning. I couldn't stand.
"For I while I had heard people around me asking for help, moaning and screaming.
"I managed to start crawling, over people who were burnt, who had lost body parts and blood. There were piles of people - it was pure carnage."
She went on: "For me, and for New York, 9/11 was our worst day, and also our best day. Because that day the people here really shone through all the tragedy."
She added: "It's not about the death and destruction for us any more. We didn't have a choice on 9/11 - somebody took that choice for us. But we choose what we do with it now."
I saw this story on the news tonight. It's about a woman who claimed she was in the Twin Towers when it was attacked but has been found to be a fraud.
Victims of the 9/11 attacks have begun to doubt Tania Head's incredible story of her escape from one of the burning Twin Towers.
Head, who become the president of a non-profit group called the World Trade Centre Survivors' Network, helped counsel 9/11 victims and campaigned for donations.
However, she has now been removed from her position after none of the details of her account could be verified.
Ms Head claimed to have been badly burned on the 78th floor of the south tower but was saved by a man who died trying to rescue others.
She also said another victim had handed her his inscribed wedding ring before he died, which she later returned to his widow. And she claimed her husband, or in some accounts her fiancé, died in the north tower.
But, Merrill Lynch, where Ms Head told people she had worked, has no record of her employment. And the family of the man she said was her lover has denied ever hearing of her and discounted details of her story.
A statement on the WTCSN's website read: "Tania Head is no longer associated with the World Trade Centre Survivors' Network.
"Our organisation was created so that those affected by the terrorist attacks could help each other through crisis and its aftermath."
Ms Head has previously shown around former New York City Mayor and Republican presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani and Mayor Michael Bloomberg around Ground Zero.
In recent weeks, she has cancelled three interviews, citing her privacy and emotional turmoil, and declined to provide details to corroborate her story.
On the fifth anniversary of the attacks, Ms Head said: "It was like King Kong had come up and basically taken a chunk out of the north tower.
"Black smoke was billowing out into the blue sky. It was such a contrast, I'll never be able to forget it.
"I hit the marble wall. When I came to I was in terrible pain, like a million needles were sticking in me at once. I realised that my back and my arm were burning. I couldn't stand.
"For I while I had heard people around me asking for help, moaning and screaming.
"I managed to start crawling, over people who were burnt, who had lost body parts and blood. There were piles of people - it was pure carnage."
She went on: "For me, and for New York, 9/11 was our worst day, and also our best day. Because that day the people here really shone through all the tragedy."
She added: "It's not about the death and destruction for us any more. We didn't have a choice on 9/11 - somebody took that choice for us. But we choose what we do with it now."