On Sept. 11, 2001, Henry D'Atri saw a plane strike World Trade Center Tower No. 1 from a window in his office on the 78th floor of Tower No. 2. He will never forget the lessons he learned that day.

D'Atri had rushed past the lips of his wife without giving her a goodbye kiss that morning and ran out the door to make sure he got a good parking spot at the train station.

"Karen was really mad at me for not giving her a kiss," he said.

They'd been married for more than 20 years and had three daughters, and his wife, a homemaker, wanted him to slow down, talk to her and say goodbye properly.

Instead, D'Atri made it to the good parking space that saved him from having to walk several blocks to the train station. He and his family lived in New Jersey, and he worked in New York City.

He'd just been promoted from sales representative to sales manager and had been in Buffalo, N.Y., with plans to go to Wisconsin the next day. He was busy training his replacement.

Rush. Rush. Rush. That was the pace of D'Atri's life, and Sept. 11 was no different. He'd woken at 5:45 a.m. and had a 90-minute, two-train commute. His second train dropped him off in the basement of the tower where he worked. He took an express elevator to the 78th floor.

His company of 150 employees also occupied space on the 77th floor. They worked in the world of finance—numbers, dollars and order.

"It was a blue sky day," D'Atri said.

A beautiful day. He and a coworker from the technical department were looking out the window when they saw a plane hit the tower next to them. They saw damage and billowing black smoke.

"It looked smaller to us, and we thought it was a small plane. My co-worker went to get a video camera," D'Atri said.

D'Atri had a different response and immediately demanded everyone evacuate. He told people to "get out," he said.

"I was concerned the smoke from the other tower would come in," he said.

Most everyone listened. An exception was Bob, the chief financial officer, who'd just had heart surgery and decided the stairs would be too much for him. His friend Steve, the head of accounting, stayed with Bob. A kind woman named Ruth didn't want to push ahead and get on an elevator, so she stayed back and graciously kept up the morale of those waiting with her who didn't go down the stairs.

And there was Jill Campbell, a woman with a 6-month-old baby at home. At work, she answered the phones. She stayed behind conscientiously doing her job. D'Atri hurts deep inside when he remembers her. He wishes he had grabbed Jill and made her stop working the phones and join him and the others who hurried to the stairs for safety, he said.

But he didn't, and Campbell died, as did nearly 3,000 others when Al Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial jetliners that crashed that day into the towers, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.

When D'Atri and the others were on the 55th floor, they felt an impact and heard a thunderous, loud boom. He thought the first tower had fallen and hit the tower they were in. No one knew another plane had struck their building and taken out part of the tower, including his company's two floors.

D'Atri was thrown against the wall as the building began rocking back and forth. People screamed as fear swelled in the stairwell.

D'Atri was glad his friend Ron Perez suggested they keep going. Minutes before, someone speaking over the public address system told those leaving the building it was safe to return to their offices. D'Atri had considered turning back.

"Ron said, 'This may not have been an accident; I think we should keep going,' and I listened to him. He saved my life," D'Atri said.

He passed emergency personnel with flashlights as he went down the stairs. Janitors from the building also helped him and others get out.

"The janitors, people you see every day and hardly notice, were there helping others get out instead of saving themselves," D'Atri said.

By the 20th floor, the air was smoky. Once he got outside, he and his group continued to walk away from the tower.

All the while he kept trying his cellphone. He waited in line to use a pay phone but couldn't reach his wife, so he called his mom and told her he was alive. He forgot to tell her he was outside the tower, so his family's anxiety didn't subside when they heard he'd called.

D'Atri's group was about 15 blocks away when the building collapsed, he recalled.

They continued to walk for miles until they got to the George Washington Bridge, where they coaxed a bread truck driver to let them crowd inside the vehicle then take them across to New Jersey. The bridge was closed to pedestrians, so they couldn't have gotten out of the city without the bread truck driver's help, D'Atri said.

From the New Jersey side, D'Atri was able to hire a driver to take him home, where family and friends were waiting outside when he finally arrived at 7 p.m.

The man who was too busy to show affection to his wife that morning was grateful to be able to hug those who were there. Kisses and tears were also shared, he said.

D'Atri and his wife have lived for more than three years now in Thousand Oaks, where he's purposely slowed down.

He no longer rushes by what he now realizes are the important things in life.

His wife gets a loving kiss every morning, he said. If he passes by someone who needs help on the side of the road, he not only calls 911, he personally stops and offers assistance until he's sure the person is taken care of.

"I don't get upset about small things anymore. I find I stay calm when other people are getting upset, because I now understand the difference between big and small problems," D'Atri said.