Chelsea Clinton writes about her Sept. 11 experiences

Associated Press

NEW YORK — Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton, who was within blocks of the World Trade Center when it collapsed, has written an account of that day for Talk magazine.

"Before Sept. 11, I wouldn’t have believed I had many innocences left," she says at the beginning of the four-page story in the magazine’s December issue. "I had seen people who had lost everything and everyone they loved to war, famine and natural disasters."

Clinton was at the lower Manhattan apartment of friend Nicole Davison, who had left for work, when a hijacked airliner hit the first tower. Clinton turned on the television and watched as the second plane hit.

"I tried to call my mother, but … the line went dead," Clinton wrote. She went outside to find a telephone and ended up walking toward the towers.

"I remember very little about how I got so far downtown," she wrote. "I do remember standing in line at a phone somewhere and hearing a deafening rumble."

The noise was the collapse of the second tower, 12 blocks away. Clinton later found Davison and another friend and the three spent the day working their way uptown.

When Clinton finally got through to her mother in Washington, D.C., she burst into tears of relief. She later spoke with her father, who was in Australia. She saw both later in the week.

Afterward, "I finally felt secure again in my own skin," wrote Clinton, who is now studying in Oxford, England.