Published 2001-12-12T00:00:00Z”/>

Jason Goldman-Hall<br>Opinion Editor

He shouted “Yeehaw!” as he exited the stairwell, making his way out of the building amid dust-clouded air and the smell of burning jet fuel.

Chico State University graduate and Redding resident Tyler Nichols had descended 61 floors in just under a half an hour, in a crowded stairwell only wide enough for two people to walk next to each other at a time.

Nichols and his co-workers, along with hundreds of other people, were in Tower Two of the World Trade Center on the morning of Sept. 11.

The events of that historic day, and the subsequent journey across the United States to his wife of less than a year changed the way Nichols looks at life, his career, and his role in the world.

“You don’t even know the things we take for granted on a daily basis,” he said. “This was something we’re all going to feel and remember for the rest of our lives.”

Nichols came to Chico State on Thursday to speak to a group of students in Room 170 of Holt Hall after contacting the Chico State chapter of the Golden Key International Honor Society, of which he is a lifetime member.

“We wanted to raise awareness of the events, and get a firsthand view of what happened,” said Golden Key treasurer Diana Greshtchuk.

Nichols had only been in Manhattan for three days before the attacks. A financial adviser for Morgan Stanley in Redding, he was in New York for training. Before arriving in New York, Nichols said he had heard all of the negative stereotypes of New Yorkers, but what he found in the Big Apple was completely different.

“They were the most friendly people I had met anywhere outside of Chico,” he said.

As crowds rushed down the stairs, he says there was little pushing and shoving. Even when the second plane hit his building, and dust and smoke began filling the stairwell, people did not panic.

Nichols’ voice wavered slightly as he recounted seeing a firefighter on crutches holding the door for people to leave the building. It was then, he said, that he realized that something major had happened.

“They told us to get off our cell phones and get away from the building – ‘Don’t look up,'” Nichols said. “The first thing we did was look up and want to get on our cell phones, call our loved ones.”

Nichols did call his loved ones. He grew teary as he talked about the relief in his wife’s voice when she found out he was OK. She had been watching the news at home in Redding with friends, trying to figure out if his floor had been hit by the planes and if he was safe.

Nichols also managed to take some photographs of the burning towers when he left the building.

He shared one with the crowd, and was greeted with muffled “wows.”

His journey home began later that day, as he went with his roommate to his home in Stamford, Conn., by train.

He was greeted by his roommate’s mother, with whom he shared a hug, a homemade pizza and a six-pack of beer as they watched fighter jets and helicopters overhead.

The next day, he rented a car and headed west, stopping in Chicago at his uncle’s house. His nephew hugged him and said “Hey, cousin Tyler, I love you.”

“Someday, maybe at his wedding, I’ll tell him how much that really meant to me,” Nichols said.

Continuing his trek home to Colorado, where his wife Heather was to meet him, Nichols said a motel clerk gave him a room with a hot tub after hearing his story.

He eventually made it to Colorado, where he met up with his wife and brother, and the three of them drove home. Nichols says he slept most of the way, but his dreams were not filled with pleasant images.

“I could smell the jet fuel burning in my dreams,” he said.

Now after three months and time spent with family, much more common things keep him up at night.

“Now I lose sleep over things like accounts and clients,” he said with a grin.

And he now only thinks one thing when he wakes up every morning next to his wife, at 4:50 a.m.

“Thank God I’m alive. Now where’s my snooze?”