‘My Rick sang folk songs to keep pals calm and told me not to cry …then the phone went dead’

GLUED to the TV in horror, Susan Rescorla frantically scanned the screen for her husband Rick as the World Trade Center building he worked in crumbled.

“If something happens to me, I want you to know that you made my life,” security guard Rick told her before the phone went dead.

They were his last words.

Exactly 15 years ago today Rick, originally from Hayle in Cornwall, was one of almost 3,000 people to die after planes hijacked by al-Qaeda terrorists ploughed into New York’s Twin Towers — first the North Tower then the South.

Now, in her first interview with a British newspaper, Susan tells the full story of how her husband died a hero, evacuating his colleagues from the South Tower to safety.

Susan, 74, said: “For those of us who lost loved ones or survived the terrorist attacks, life will never be the same. Every time there’s another terrorist attack or IS carries out a beheading, I cannot stop crying.”

Rick, the security chief at financial giant Morgan Stanley, is known as the man who predicted 9/11. The 62-year-old is also credited with saving the lives of almost 2,700 people.

Rick, a former US army officer, told his bosses the World Trade Center’s underground car park was a terrorist target three years before a truck bomb exploded there in 1993. He later warned that planes could hit the complex and urged the company to move.

I treasure every moment we had

When his recommendations were ignored, Rick devised an evacuation plan he put into action moments after a plane hit the North Tower.

On September 11, 2001, Rick got up at 4.30am as usual. Susan heard him singing a Cornish folk song as he got dressed.

“He was always singing,” she said, smiling as she recalled helping him choose a red silk tie to go with his grey suit.

When he arrived at his office, he texted her as normal, to say he loved her.

But just hours later, Susan received several frantic phone calls from friends to say a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

She was already fighting back tears when Rick called to say he was evacuating everyone from his building.

Susan said: “He told me not to cry but then the phone went dead.”

Choking back tears, she recalled: “The phone was ringing constantly. I kept picking it up hoping it would be Rick but the calls were from friends. I had the television on and saw Rick’s tower collapse.

“I ran screaming into the street. I’m not sure why, I just ran outside.”

A neighbour whose husband had been on the 100th floor of the South Tower also ran outside and the two women clung to each other, wailing.

It later emerged that after ignoring orders to remain in his building following the initial attack, Rick, who worked on the 44th floor, told everyone to get out. In an act of extraordinary bravery, he later went back up looking for stragglers as the South Tower plane hit, 17 minutes after the terrorists first struck.

Survivors told Susan how Rick used a megaphone to sing America The Beautiful and Cornish folk songs to keep everyone’s spirits up.

Experts said his brave actions were the main reason 2,700 left the tower alive.

Rick was one of 67 Brits to die in the attack.

Susan, who now lives in New Jersey, said the two or three days afterwards were a blur.

She recalled travelling into New York with Rick’s toothbrush to help forensic experts identify the few bodies that had been discovered. But Rick’s remains were never found. In the lead-up to the attacks,

Rick had concerns about the threat of a terror attack.
Susan, who married Rick in 1999, added: “I think he knew what was about to happen. There was chatter between the FBI and the CIA.

“We talked about what he thought was going to happen and he told his bosses the World Trade Center was vulnerable. He worried about planes hitting. He was very focused on what could happen, even to the point of talking to me about where he wanted his memorial.”

In the lead-up to the attacks Rick had concerns about the threat of a terror attack

Susan prefers to focus on the good times they enjoyed together.

She said: “He was such a big, funny man. We’d be shopping and he’d grab me and start dancing.”

Rick’s army of friends have been a big comfort to Susan over the past 15 years. When the 9/11 Memorial Museum opened on the site of the old World Trade Center two years ago, so many of Rick’s friends wanted to attend that officials laid on a special tour.

Susan said: “I thought I could do it but I got upset. I wanted to run away. I told the curator I thought they’d done a great job. But I know I can never go in there again.”

Asked if she would ever visit the rebuilt One World Trade Center, Susan said: “Oh God, no. But we had commemorative coins made from the steel at Ground Zero and two of Rick’s friends were allowed to go to the top before it was finished. They embedded a coin up there for Rick.”

Today, Susan plans to visit the bird sanctuary which has a memorial plaque for Rick. She will then attend a church service.

She said: “All day, I will get the most beautiful phone calls and emails from Rick’s friends all over the world. It’s a wonderful tribute and it makes me happy people have not forgotten him.

“I treasure every single moment I had with him.”