By Madeline Folsom on SwimSwam
Today is the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that led to the deaths of nearly 3,000 people including former UCLA swimmer James Andrew O’Grady.
O’Grady was from Harrington Park, New Jersey and swam at UCLA from 1987–1991 before the school cut the program in 1994. He was a four year letter winner at the program and qualified for the 100 and 200 breaststroke events for the 1988, 1989, and 1991 NCAA Championships.
In 1991, he also served as a team co-captain for the UCLA team, and stayed on as a graduate assistant after using his four years of eligibility.
The morning of September 11, 2001 started the same as any other fall morning in Manhattan, and O’Grady arrived to work as a managing director at the investment banking firm Sandler O’Neill & Partners on the 104th floor of 2 World Trade Center, or the South Tower.
O’Grady had just returned from a vacation in Greece with his fiancée Rachel Uchitel, and was on his second day back in the office. Uchitel told the Los Angeles Times that he arrived just 45 minutes before the attack.
At 8:46 a.m. United Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower between floors 93 and 99.
Uchitel spoke to O’Grady shortly after the first plane struck, and while he sounded “stressed”, he told her that the employees were not being evacuated from the South Tower.
Seventeen minutes later at 9:03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 175 crashes into the South Tower between floors 77 and 85, trapping hundreds of employees, including O’Grady, inside.
At 9:59 a.m., 56 minutes after Flight 175 struck, the South Tower collapsed.
O’Grady was missing and presumed dead, but Uchitel spent days searching for him and printing flyers with his face. In late September, O’Grady’s friends and family held a memorial for him, attended by hundreds of friends and former teammates of O’Grady including former coach Ron Ballatore, who died in 2012.
The September 11th attacks are etched in the memories of those who experienced them, and the aftermath saw people coming together in ways that now seem unfathomable.
Andy O’Grady was one of many lives lost in the tragedy, and, now a quarter-of-a-century after the attacks, it remains just as important to honor and remember those who lost their lives.
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