A woman who survived the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, explained how her life has been changed since then.
Lolita Jackson, who had been working for Morgan Stanley on the 70th floor of the World Trade Center, when the deadly terrorist attacks happened 22 years ago, told NBC News during an interview on Monday morning that the attacks inspired her to “make a career change.”
The 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center was the second terror attack that Jackson had survived. Jackson survived the 1993 bombing at the World Trade Center which left six people dead, according to the FBI’s website.
“The stock phrase I always use is if you get killed going to work, which they tried to do to me twice, you better really love your job,” Jackson said.
“About two years after 9/11 I decided to make a career change,” Jackson explained, adding that she didn’t know what the career change would be.
Jackson continued to explain how she took time off to focus on her “hobbies and passions outside of work.”
“To make a long story short I ended up in the mayor’s office of New York City working first for Mayor Michael Bloomberg and then for Mayor Bill DeBlasio,” Jackson explained. “And, I was there for 15 years. It changed the trajectory of my life. I’m a very happy person, my friends will tell you I live life to the fullest because I know tomorrow is not promised.”
Prior to the 9/11 attacks, Jackson had started working for Dean Witter in the World Trade Center in 1992, according to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum website.
“On 9/11, we were at a conference room because we were having a staff meeting,” Jackson explains in the video on the website. “I was looking out the window when, unfortunately, the first plane hit the first building.”
Jackson began making her way down the stairs of the building with a colleague, Thomas Swift. They were instructed to find the nearest elevator to take to the 44th floor.
When she arrived on the 44th floor, Jackson says that’s when their building got hit by the plane.
“That floor had no windows. It was called a sky lobby, so we could not see the plane or see anything that was happening outside,” Jackson says. “We just felt the impact and the building just moved and then it moved back. It felt like it was falling at the time.”
