Early Labor Spares Couple on Sept. 11

By Simon Eskow

A top accountant with Deloitte & Touche and his pregnant wife escaped potential calamity on Sept. 11 when the 30-year-old woman went into labor hours before terrorists flew passenger jets into the World Trade Center.

The couple would have been on their way to work if Cathy Langford hadn’t had pre-labor contractions at 2 a.m., said Guy Langford, a principal with the firm’s mergers and acquisitions services group.

“We both usually go to work around 9 a.m.,” said Langford, president of the Association of Chartered Accountants in the United States (ACAUS), which is headquartered in New York City. “We would likely have been walking around the World Trade Center site when the first plane hit—which may have resulted in a vastly different outcome for both of us.”

Cathy Langford worked for Deutsche Bank’s real estate investment banking group at 130 Liberty St. and her husband worked in the World Financial Center with 2,300 colleagues at the Big Five firm. Both buildings were almost destroyed and sustained significant damage as a result of the attacks; the couple were forced to flee their nearby apartment building as the air filled with acrid smoke and debris when the two towers of the World Trade Center collapsed later that morning.

The attack had a devastating effect on the financial community, especially investment firms, banks and government agencies that maintained offices in the area. About 400 members of the New York State Society of CPAs worked there, according to one Society estimate, including 100 based in the seven buildings of the World Trade Center. There have been several reported casualties of people who belonged to the Society.

Langford said he and Cathy were discussing what they would do that day since they decided not to go to work after the onset of the contractions. They were having breakfast when the first plane hit the south tower of the trade center at 8:48 a.m.

Langford said he heard the engines throttling, followed by an “almighty explosion.” He saw the damage to the building from the couple’s 15th-story apartment, and surmised that it could not have been an accident. Guy and Cathy were in shock from seeing the destruction and witnessing workers escaping from the building.

When the second plane hit, the Langfords decided to get out of the building for fear that one of the towers would collapse on top of their own apartment building. They gathered their passports, insurance documents and car keys, along with towels and a knife in the event that Cathy went into labor.

The towers collapsed as they made their way first to their lobby and then, in an attempt to evacuate as far from the area as possible, to a parking garage, and later a second residential building.

“We were clearly in shock and could not believe what was happening around us,” Langford said. “To flee your home…never expecting to return and see your neighborhood destroyed in front of your eyes in less than two hours is difficult to imagine,…We heard news as we were running from our building lobby that there were more hijacked planes in the air and this made us very nervous and concerned that there was more to come.”

During their evacuation, the couple witnessed people seeking refuge in buildings, so covered in soot that they looked like ghosts. Running along the street, they saw parts of one of the planes that slammed into the trade center, Langford said.

They were finally evacuated from the neighborhood at 1 p.m. when they told a fireman that Cathy was in labor. An ambulance drove them to Beth Israel Hospital, where Cathy and her unborn child were checked on, then they walked to New York University’s Tisch Hospital, where Cathy gave birth to a girl early the next day. They named her Grace.

Langford said the attacks forced him to relocate to a Deloitte office near Washington, D.C. He has only returned to his apartment on three occasions to salvage essential items and to assess the damage.

The couple remains in Northern Virginia but will soon return to a new home in the New York City area. Guy attributed their salvation that day to the early birth of their daughter.

“We called her Grace…because by coming out before her due date she saved our lives and probably her own as well,” Langford said.