(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
It's time now for StoryCorps. Twenty-five years ago, Amy Mundorff was working for the New York City Medical Examiner's Office. On September 11, she was deployed to the World Trade Center after the first plane hit and was caught in the collapse of the South Tower. She suffered severe head and neck injuries, as well as long-term respiratory illness. Still, she returned to work and spent the next three years identifying victims. Amy first came to StoryCorps in 2010 with her husband, Kurt.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KURT MUNDORFF: When you came home, I just wanted to hold you, but you were so broken and bruised. You would wince when I touched you. And there were these rocks in your pockets, the same rocks that had pummeled your head and your body. And I remember thinking, if anything had gone any differently, I wouldn't have you.
AMY MUNDORFF: The debris that I breathed in - it went really deep into my lungs and got trapped down there. So I'd get short of breath if I walk and talk at the same time.
K MUNDORFF: But on September 13, we took the train in together so you could go to work.
A MUNDORFF: I mean, in retrospect, I was in shock. Probably shouldn't have gone in, but I couldn't sit home and think about what had happened. The remains of the victims were already starting to come to our office.
K MUNDORFF: So you sat and sorted through remains.
A MUNDORFF: Twelve hours a day, seven days a week. It was the least that I could do because I made it through, and these people didn't. I would come home every day exhausted, and then you would have dinner ready. And, like, I - sometimes I didn't even speak. And then I would get up early the next morning and leave again. And you were always there, doing everything, even though I was giving nothing back.
K MUNDORFF: You were giving everything. Everyone wanted to be able to give back to the country, and that was the way for me to give back.
A MUNDORFF: Sometimes I feel bad for you, though. You married one Amy, and now you have a different one. I used to be fun and happy, and now I'm not.
K MUNDORFF: Well, I think when you marry somebody, you marry their future. And I love that I married you, and I love the daughter we're raising together.
A MUNDORFF: Yeah. She's just amazing. I sometimes wonder how I'll explain to her what happened on September 11. I hope she hears this someday.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SARAH MUNDORFF: I'm Sarah Mundorff. I'm 19 years old, and I'm speaking with my mom.
A MUNDORFF: I am Amy Mundorff, and it's been 16 years since I made that recording.
S MUNDORFF: You said you hoped I would listen. Why?
A MUNDORFF: Well, I had just started getting sick, so I didn't know how long I'd be around. How do you feel about it?
S MUNDORFF: I guess I was impressed, as I always am, by how brave you are.
A MUNDORFF: You know, when I listen to that interview, I think I sound like a broken person.
S MUNDORFF: I don't know you as broken.
A MUNDORFF: You only know me as broken. But I would still work as hard as I did identifying people. I wouldn't change that. I would sit down with families with a drawing of a skeleton and color in the parts that had been identified instead of showing them pictures, so they could have an idea of how much was really there - to decide whether they wanted to have a funeral or to wait for more pieces. So...
S MUNDORFF: Sounds challenging.
A MUNDORFF: Yeah. But they were so strong. They didn't want us to sugarcoat it. They wanted to know what happened to their loved one.
S MUNDORFF: I think it was last week someone reached out to you 'cause their family member still hadn't been identified.
A MUNDORFF: There's still about a thousand people who haven't been identified. It's hard.
S MUNDORFF: Do you feel any anger at the attackers?
A MUNDORFF: You know, I mean, I was probably one of the few people in the world that got to handle their remains.
S MUNDORFF: You handled their remains?
A MUNDORFF: Family members made it very clear that they did not want them in the same area as the victim remains, so I would go in and remove them. When we identified the first piece, I remember holding it, like, what do I do? Am I mad at it? Do I stomp on it? What do I do with it?
S MUNDORFF: Yeah. In the last interview, it sounded like you feel a lot of guilt. Do you think it's changed at all?
A MUNDORFF: No. If I could erase one thing in my life, I would erase going down there. It changed my personality. It changed my body. It changed everything. You know, my great-grandmother was 102. My grandmother was 97. But I feel like I won't have as long of a life because of what happened. I'm sorry.
S MUNDORFF: Not your fault. And you know that. You don't have to answer this, but do you think you would have had me?
A MUNDORFF: If I hadn't been in the World Trade Center collapse?
S MUNDORFF: Mm-hmm.
A MUNDORFF: I wouldn't change that. I love you.
S MUNDORFF: I love you.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAMAL GREEN'S "THINGS HAVEN'T BEEN THE SAME SINCE WE LOST STEVE IRWIN")
MARTIN: Amy Mundorff talking to her daughter, Sarah Mundorff, and to her husband, Kurt Mundorff, in Knoxville, Tennessee. Their interviews are archived at the Library of Congress.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAMAL GREEN'S "THINGS HAVEN'T BEEN THE SAME SINCE WE LOST STEVE IRWIN") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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