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Dorry Tompsett didn’t need to be told that her Australian husband, Stephen, had died at the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001.
The American mum knew it in the horrendous, heart-wrenching moment that she saw the burning North Tower come crumbling down live on TV.
“I had worked on the 104th floor of the building, and I knew how long it took to get to the bottom,” Dorry tells Woman’s Day from her home in New Jersey. “I knew he wouldn’t have been able to get down.”
It is 25 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US, which claimed 2,977 lives, including 10 Australians. It triggered a war in the Middle East, and changed air travel forever.
Orchestrated by the Islamic jihadist group Al-Qaeda, the catastrophic attack involved 19 suicide terrorists hijacking four passenger planes. Two planes were flown into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in Manhattan causing both to collapse, one was crashed into the Pentagon.
A fourth aircraft, believed to be bound for Washington’s Capitol Building, crashed into a field after a brave band of passengers forced their way into the cockpit.
“It’s important that people remember, not only how awful it was, but how wonderful people were,” says Dorry.
Aussie man Stephen was a ‘special and caring’ person
“In a horrible time, everyone came together and helped. It was amazing.”
Born and raised in western Sydney, Stephen Tompsett, 39, was a maths whiz who studied economics and computer science at the University of Sydney.
Graduating with first class honours in 1984, he was awarded the prestigious University Medal, for his outstanding achievements and contribution.
“Stephen basically created the computer science department,” says Dorry.
After landing a job with an Australian tech company, the software engineer was sent to New York in 1986 to help a US company set up a software system.
There he met political science graduate Dorry, who worked as a consultant for the company, and the pair fell in love, married and set up home in Garden City, Long Island. Daughter Emily arrived in 1991.
At the time of his death, Stephen was the senior vice president for US internet trading company Instinet.
“He was very special, and a very caring person,” says Dorry, 72.
“He had 500 people working for him. But for him, it was family and faith before work. Every night he wanted to be home to read to Emily before she went to sleep. He tried his hardest to do that.”
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Stephen was in a rush to get to a technology conference at the Windows on the World restaurant on the top floors (106th and 107th) of the World Trade Center’s North Tower.
He kissed Emily goodbye at the breakfast table and then head toward the door.
“I said, ‘Hey, what about me?!’ ” Dorry says, smiling. “Then he ran back and kissed me saying, ‘Sorry, sorry.’ Then he ran out to get the train.”
Later that morning, Dorry was on a work conference call when a colleague told her a plane had hit the World Trade Center.
“At first everyone thought it was an accident,” she says of the North Tower being struck at 8.46 AM. “Because no one would have thought this was purposeful.”
When a second plane hit the South Tower 17 minutes later, it was clear the US was under attack.
‘I think it’s a terrorist attack… I love you’
“Stephen had a Blackberry phone and I emailed him, asking him if he was alright, and he told me he was ‘above the problem,’” says Dorry, quietly.
Crashing through floors 93 to 99 of the North Tower, the hijacked United Airlines jet had severed all three emergency stairwells of the building, and the elevator shaft.
“But Stephen didn’t know what was going on,” says Dorry. “He asked me, ‘Do you know what’s going on?’ And I replied, ‘I think it’s a terrorist attack. I love you.’ ”
Yet Dorry wasn’t giving up hope. “You just keep ploughing through, because you think it’s going to be okay,” she says. “Because it’s got to be ok. This can’t be possible.”
Then, as Dorry watched the horrifying news coverage on TV, the North Tower collapsed.
“Nobody should ever imagine what that’s like,” says Dorry.
With the South Tower having collapsed 29 minutes before, the New York City skyline was altered forever, and lower Manhattan resembled a warzone, its streets filled with debris and death.
To date, more than 4,300 people have died from exposure to toxins in the cleanup of the ground zero site, according to the World Trade Center Health Program.
Dorry’s parents rushed to her home in Garden City and then they went to the nearby school bus stop to pick up 9-year-old Emily. All activities at school had been cancelled for the day.
“I remember the bus driver looked at me, and I shook my head and she just started to cry,” recalls Dorry.
“I told Emily and she just screamed and screamed.”
In an act of denial, Emily went back to school the next day.
“My traumatised young brain was like, ‘Keep going about your life, everything’ll be fine,’” she tells Woman’s Day.
“Later on, Mom and I went separately to therapy.”
Dorry also had to tell Stephen’s family in Sydney.
“I called my brother-in-law, Geoff,” she says. “He gathered his brother, Ian, and his sister, Liz, and the three of them went and told their parents, Rae and John.”
Since 2001, Emily has regularly visited their relatives in Australia. Rae and John have now passed.
In the immediate aftermath, Dorry says her community was a constant source of comfort and support. Twenty-three people from Garden City lost their lives on 9/11.
“Everybody helped,” she says. “The churches, Salvation Army, the people on my block, everyone. People brought us food, and we would get notes like, ‘Do you need help paying your bills?’
Incredible kindness was shown to the other families who lost loved ones.
“One lady, whose husband died, didn’t know her car was on a lease, and had to pay the bill. The company just let her keep the car. It was incredible,” says Dorry.
“There were also attorneys who donated their time to all the affected families, businesses waived late fees on bills, and the people at Stephen’s company kept in contact with us.”
Though Stephen’s remains were never recovered, Dorry, a Catholic, held a funeral at her local church, and dedicated a bench in Garden City to her husband. It holds a plaque bearing Stephen’s name and the inscription, “A beloved husband and father”.
Stephen’s memory lives on
“When Emily was young, she decorated the bench for Easter and Christmas,” says Dorry.
“And when she got married in 2022, she got a photo of her bouquet on the bench.”
Emily left her flowers on the bench that day.
“Dad was really smart in a lot of ways,” says Emily, who is gifted at maths like her dad.
“Whenever we were in the car for long periods we’d play algebra games. I loved it. I didn’t know it was algebra; I only realised when I was older. Math was definitely my favourite subject at school.”
Dorry also set up a memorial fund in Stephen’s name, which has involved donating computers, and granting scholarships, to schools in Garden City, and Stephen’s Sydney schools – Parramatta Marist High and St Margaret Mary’s Catholic Primary School in Merrylands.
“Because there wasn’t a lot of technology in education at the time,” says Dorry.
Dorry says the fund has helped more than 300 kids in the US and Australia with scholarships.
Dorry also takes some comfort in the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, which includes two giant pools in the footprints of the fallen towers, and cascading waterfalls within.
“It’s just so peaceful,” she says.
And each year on September 11, she watches the coverage of the anniversary commemoration at the site, during which the names of the victims are read aloud.
“We went the first year, when it was just dirt, and in the second year, Emily read her father’s name,” she says.
“I’ve heard Stephen’s name 24 times now. It’s important to hear his name. I don’t want to hear it, but the reality is they’re going to say it.”
Does she hold any anger toward the terrorists who committed the atrocity?
“It’s more sadness that there are people who did this, and continue to do this,” she says. “They are misguided. I can never understand it because killing people is never right.”
To that end, when Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was killed by US Forces in 2011, Dorry found no reason to celebrate.
“We were just glad he couldn’t hurt anybody else,” she says.
Welcoming a bundle of joy
Though the pain of her loss never goes away, Dorry is in a better place today, thanks to a little bundle of joy.
Last year, Emily, now 34, and her husband Brad welcomed a baby boy.
Emily is a maths and computer science teacher at a private high school in New Jersey.
“He’s a wonderful little baby,” says Dorry. “The hole inside of me will never go away, but he’s made the rough edges around the hole a little softer.”
For the doting grandmother, who moved to New Jersey to be closer to her daughter’s family, the baby has brought her happiness in a way than she could never have imagined.
“To me, he’s like a bit more Stephen in the world,” she says. “And Stephen would just adore the baby. I think he’s in heaven, looking down at us, and he would be so happy.”
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