One Eastern alumna said she followed her instincts and it saved her life last Tuesday.

Stacy Scherf, a 1992 Eastern graduate, was on the 101st floor of the south World Trade Center tower when the first hijacked airplane hit the north World Trade Center tower in what is being called the worst act of terrorism in America.

“I remained one step ahead of everything that was happening, that’s for sure,” Scherf said in an e-mail. “I didn’t even have the dust on me that you see in most of the images on TV. I had followed my instincts and saved my life.”

Scherf, a graduate with a degree in theatre arts, is a voice-over actor in New York City who had been doing office work for AON Consulting, a global life insurance company, in the Special Risk department for the past month to earn some extra money.

Fear never really took over in Scherf’s life, one factor that probably helped her to survive.

“I honestly had no fear of dying, at all. The only objective I had was to get out of the building,” she said.

Scherf really had luck or a stronger force on her side. She said of the 10 people Optimum Temporary Staffing placed in that building with AON, she was the only one accounted for so far.

“I know I’m not the only survivor. There are most likely more survivors than those who died, but it is still so overwhelming and sad,” she said. “Overwhelming that I made it out alive and sad that so many didn’t make it out.”

After contacting family, the first image Scherf saw on TV was of the plane striking the building she had been in.

“I almost passed out when I saw it. I was stunned and amazed that I had gotten

down the stairwell far enough to avoid real problems,” Scherf said. “I still don’t know how I had gotten down what must have been 40 or more floors in 18 minutes.”

She thinks the news said the plane struck at about the 60 to 70th floor, with one wing striking directly below where her office window had been.

Scherf said she has been going through stages of post-traumatic stress disorder since Wednesday, but she has found comfort in talking with her mom and friends from across the nation on the phone and being with her friends in the city. E-mails also have helped her.

“I’m doing okay. I am obviously made of pretty strong stuff,” she said. “But I do need some major TLC. I am also dealing with extremely strained leg muscles, so I am basically immobile for a few more days. I was forced to go to a voice-over job yesterday, and it was tough, physically and mentally.”

Scherf has had minimal contact with New York City, but she said what she

has seen is not surprising.

“People are stunned. It’s a little quieter,” she said. “People are very introspective and somber.”

She said she is happy to hear from friends that life is really going on.

“Many are back to the grind of this city. I’ll get there,” she said. “I just might have to start the first day of the rest of my life next week.”

Scherf, like everyone else in America, will remember Sept. 11, 2001 forever,

but unlike many, she has a unique keepsake of the day.

“I have a memento as it were from Tuesday. Each day I worked there, I had to

check in at the main desk and get a credit card type pass,” Scherf said. “I have the one from that day. It has my name, my picture, 2 WTC, 101st Floor, AON, 9/11/01. I’m having it framed.”

Her e-mail address is [email protected] for anyone interested in writing her.

In an attempt to let people know she was safe, she sent out an e-mail detailing

what had happened to her.

As with many events, people’s memories become clearer with time, and Scherf’s memory is no different.

“What comes to mind after sending out that e-mail was that the split second

before I ran to the stairwell, I remember thinking – `Why are people just running around?’

“As I said, I always thought that there just weren’t enough people in the stairwell, and many times, I was alone as I descended. But there was no sense of real trouble. I remember that I wasn’t panicked or overly frightened, just the feeling that I should just get down the stairs and out of the building. I never saw anyone from my group or floor. I helped one woman down many flights of stairs, but she couldn’t keep up with me. She stopped to rest … I didn’t see her again.”

“My two survival friends who were also descending the same stairwell corrected

my earlier remembrance of the announcement that was made right before the impact

of our building. They said that the guy had also said, `You may return to your desks,’ this would be an explanation of why so few people were in the stairwell.”