Coma Victim Grateful for CNN's Real-time 9/11 Coverage

Davenport, IA--

Tom Reynolds wasn't anywhere near Manhatten on September 11, 2001. In fact, he was sound asleep. The whole day. The whole year, actually, and all four of the next, deep in a coma since a tragic slip n' slide accident in August of that year. So when he suddenly awoke early in the morning on Monday, September 11, 2006, he had no idea his world was about to change forever-- or that, in actuality, it already had.

"The nurses came in and told me that I was in a coma for five years," Reynolds said. "After the shock wore off, I decided I had better check out CNN to see what was going on these days. You know, try to get caught up."

Reynolds, just coming to grips with the fact that he had been unconscious for five years of his life, couldn't have prepared himself for what he saw next: the World Trade Center collapsing before his eyes.

"I was back in shock," he said. "I just couldn't believe it. We were being attacked by terrorists, and all I could think was if everyone I knew in New York was ok. I started making some calls."

Friends and family in New York were shocked to hear his voice. At first they thought it was a sick prank. Reynolds was frantic.

"I just kept yelling at him to get a grip, you know, pull yourself together, man," said Ed Hampton, Reynolds' longtime friend who used to work in the World Trade Center's South Tower. "He just kept shouting 'Get yourself out of there! Get a gun! We're under attack dammit!'"

Try as he might, Hampton couldn't reason with Reynolds.

"He was absolutely out of his mind," Hampton said. "There was no explaining anything. I don't know if it was the coma or what, but he had completely lost it."

Reynolds continued to make desperate calls, sometimes to numbers that no longer were assigned to people he knew. Angela Liota, who moved to Manhattan just three months ago, was one recipient of Reynolds' pleas.

"I came home and had 15 messages on my machine, each one crazier than the next," Liota said. "He kept saying I was being attacked by terrorists and that I should crouch under a chair. I really thought it was a crazy person disturbed by the anniversary or something. I have caller ID, so if he calls back I'm screening it."

Reynolds' panic would finally subside that afternoon when, while flipping channels, he caught a report about the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Still somewhat confused by what he had seen, the truth began to dawn on him when he saw a promo for CNN's "Real-time" replay of their September 11, 2001 coverage.

"That's when I started to put it all together," he said. "Man, was I relieved. Of course, I still didn't know if many of my friends were dead or alive. And then I found out that almost as many people have died since then in Iraq- and I had a couple buddies in the Guard back then, so I started to wonder about them too."

Despite the shock, grief and worry, Reynolds says he is grateful that CNN replayed their coverage in real-time.

"You know, if I wasn't able to watch that, and truly believe it was happening at the time, I feel like I would have been missing out on a national event," Reynolds said. "You know, watching that horror unfold on live tv and feeling the resulting shock, fear and trauma was a common experience for the whole country. Missing that would be like missing the first episode of Survivor. I just would have felt really out of the loop at the water cooler."

Reynolds also credits the experience for some of his newfound beliefs.

"Had I not been able to watch the terror literally roaring in from the skies above, I would not be so nearly afraid of potential attacks now," he said. "Not afraid enough, at least, to vote Republican, which I'm going to do from now on."

Despite the initial setback, doctors expect Reynolds to make a full recovery.