88th floor survivor leaves hospital

A woman who escaped from the 88th floor of the World Trade Centre and survived with 77% burns to her body left hospital yesterday after almost five months of treatment.

Elaine Duch was not expected to survive and was unconscious for almost three months as she was treated for the horrific burns and a lung injury she suffered in the fireball as one of the hijacked jets crashed into the building just a few feet above her.

As she left hospital she said: "I want to get back to the way I was."

Ms Duch, 49, still faces months of treatment, but her recovery so far has amazed doctors who had to resuscitate her on September 11.

She was the last World Trade Centre victim to leave the Weill Cornwell burns unit in New York, which treated many of the seriously injured from the World Trade Centre.

"After spending all the time in hospital I am ready to move on," she said.

Ms Duch told how she stood in the lobby of her office in the first tower to be hit and saw the fire begin.

"I was in the hallway in my office then all of a sudden it looked like fire. If I was a few steps further in, I would have been burned up. I do not know whether I was on fire or it was the heat.

"They got an elevator and we got down to the 44th floor and from there we walked all the way down.

"I said, 'God save me', and He did. I just managed to get out the building."

Ms Duch, who lost virtually all her skin in the fire, was helped down the 44 storeys by two strangers who took her to an ambulance which rushed her to hospital, where doctors classified her as "critical".

She spent more than three months under sedation as surgeons worked on her horrendous burns, and she did not know that hijacked planes had carried out the attack.

"I had no idea," she said. "It was about a month ago when I woke up and somebody told me it was a plane. I cannot believe the towers are gone."

Paul Adams, the paramedic who rushed Ms Duch to hospital, spoke of his amazement at her being able to leave hospital.

"We asked the priest to give her the last rites and he did that when we got her to St Vincent's," he said. "I've been coming every Saturday since that day. She is just awesome."

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