That day, some experienced transit delays, vehicular breakdowns or other emergencies. Others called in sick. Still others changed or cancelled other routines for all sorts of reasons.
That morning, they didn’t go to their offices, shops, kitchens or other workplaces. Some missed a day’s pay; others worried—only a for a while, as fate would have it—about their reputations, or even their jobs. But only for a while, a short while.
Erik Timbol may have had a smaller worry, but his “what if” resonates just as much as those of the people who didn’t go to work—or who, for what other reasons, weren’t in the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m. on 11 September 2001.
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| Erin Michelle Ray |
He often joined Erin Michelle Ray—one of Nevada’s top triathletes—for a ride. He’d planned on doing that, along with four other friends, last Thursday. But he had to work a shift at Las Vegas Cyclery.
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| Thomas Chamberlin Trauger |
Ms. Ray went for that ride, along with fellow Las Vegas residents Gerard Suarez Nieva, Michael Todd Murray, Aksoy Ahmet and Thomas Chamberlin Trauger.
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| Michael Todd Murray |
They will not ride with Mr. Timbol—or anyone else, or by themselves—again. A truck struck and killed them.
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| Gerard Suarez Nieva |
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| Aksoy Ahmet |
The crash was ruled an accident. Erik Timbol, however, was saved by fate-or a schedule-making decision. In any event, I am sure he is grieving the loss of his training partners and friends: Erin Michelle Ray, Gerard Suarez Nieva, Michael Todd Murray, Akhsoy Ahmet and Thomas Chamberlin Trauger.
