Web Exclusive: Extended interview with 9/11 survivor

A few months ago, Bruce Stephan spoke with his wife, Joan Stephan, in the StoryCorps booth at SF's Contemporary Jewish Museum  about what it was like to potentially be the luckiest man in San Francisco. He earned this title by surviving the collapse of the Bay Bridge during the 1989 earthquake and then, just twelve years later, surving the World Trade Center attacks. KALW's Seth Samuel decided to check up with Stephan in this exclusive interview, featuring excellent tips on how to make your near death experience the best it can possibly be.

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BRUCE STEPHAN: The earthquake was probably the more significant of the experiences of the two for me because I had the bridge drop from underneath me. At that moment, at that second in time, as I felt the sensation like dropping in an elevator, I truly believed that that was it, that I was gonna die.

I remember screaming, 'We're gonna die' and I blacked out. I was mad at myself for just being like a crash test dummy and sitting there. I remember at that moment,  when I said 'We're gonna die' , it wasn't like a bad thing. It wasn't like a horrible thing. When I blacked out, it made me think, I guess the reality is you can't die in your dreams. You're not going to be there when that last moment comes. In other words, it wasn't a bad experience.

I've gotten over any kind of fear of death I might have had and accepted that it's going to happen. It probably won't be horrible when it happens. I'm either not going to be there, or I won't feel bad when it's coming. One thing I can offer, from being in so many near death experiences, is that you don't have to be afraid of it. When the moment comes, it doesn't feel like a bad thing. It was just sort of a disappointment. It wasn't like, Oh, this is the worst thing that could happen.

Second, when the last moment comes, you're probably just going to shut right down and not know what's happening to you. So that's one positive thing. The other wisdom that came out of both of them is that, if there's nobody around that you can save, and no good reason to stick around at all, it's best to get as far away from the disaster as possible.

At the world trade center, well, I kind of learned that lesson the first time. Like, get off the bridge quick because it may fall down still. I didn't get off the bridge until about midnight or later because I was at Treasure Island Hospital. But it's best to get off as quickly as possible.

There wasn't too much I could do for anyone. Once I got out of the building, I tried to get as faraway as possible and then when the building came down, I knew not to be out doors, breathing in all of the, you know, poisonous stuff that was coming down.  What I did do was kind of open the door and yell out 'Save yourself! Save your lungs and come inside!' Some rescue workers came in and we kind of cleaned them up. They were covered in ash, and they collapsed. So I guess the bottom line wisdom would be: Get away as quickly as you can if there's no one you can help.

Hear Bruce Stephan's original StoryCorps interview here, and if you want to know how to tell your own story in the booth, go to the StoryCorps website.