Civic duty spared CPA from terrorist attack.(Robert N. Waxman)(Brief Article)

Although his accounting business on the 15th floor of Two World Trade Center was obliterated by the devastating terrorist attack on that building, Robert N. Waxman's sense of civic duty may have saved his life.

Rather than catching an early morning subway and arriving at his office as usual at 8:45 a.m. on Sept. 11, Waxman opted to vote in New York's mayoral Democratic primary at a polling place near his midtown apartment.

Had he arrived at his usual time he would have been behind his desk at World Trade Center's south tower when terrorist-hijacked airliners rammed both towers of the WTC complex. The delay in order to vote brought him into the area shortly after that wave of destruction.

But then, his business -- Robert N. Waxman, CPA, Corporate Finance Advisory -- was just a memory among the tons of debris raining upon downtown New York from the buildings' collapse.

"I thought I would just walk from the subway to work that day, but it was not to be because when I got off the train both buildings were on fire," Waxman recalled calmly.

His steady recollection belied some horrifying memories of that morning. Upon exiting the subway, he witnessed burning rubble and debris falling from the building mixed with pieces of clothing and metal from the airliners. He even briefly stood next to one of the plane engines that had landed on the street.

"The sky was just littered with ash, fire and flames, airplane parts and pieces of clothing were coming down, and people were pouring out of buildings and the trains," he remembered. "And it seemed like everyone was staring at their cell phones, but nothing was working while they tried to reach their friends and families."