How Gwyneth Paltrow saved woman's life during 9/11 attacks following accidental encounter
Topics: Gwyneth Paltrow, New York, Life
Emily Brown
Featured Image Credit: Ivan Romano/Getty Images/Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Topics: Gwyneth Paltrow, New York, Life
If you were anything more than a toddler on September 11, 2001, chances are you remember where you were on that day.
The date is one engrained in Americans' minds, due to the horrific events involving multiple plane hijackings, the destruction of New York's Twin Towers, and the deaths of almost 3,000 people.
Most Americans have their own stories from 9/11, and New Yorker Lara Lundstrom Clarke's is among the more unusual.
Clarke was 24 years old in September 2001, and she had a job as an account manager at Baseline Financial Services - a position that saw her working at the World Trade Center.
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Clarke recalled the events of that day in an interview with The Morton Report, per The Hollywood Reporter, where she explained that she was on her way to work, cutting across 7th Avenue when a silver Mercedes SUV nearly hit her.
She recalled: “I stopped and they screeched to a halt. Then it developed in to one of those classic who-goes-first situations. It got ridiculous. Then I made eye contact with the Mercedes driver."
As it turned out, this wasn't some average-Joe New Yorker. It was actually a star of movies like Shallow Hal and Sliding Doors; the future founder of Goop and would-be wife of Coldplay's Chris Martin.
Clarke recalled: "OMG it was Gwyneth Paltrow.”
Thankfully no one was injured in the close call between Clarke and Paltrow, but the encounter did result in a knock-on effect that ultimately changed the course of Clarke's life.
After the actor waved her on across the street, Clarke realized she'd missed her subway train by seconds. By the time she caught the second train and exited at the World Trade Center stop, it was 8:47am.
According to the Miller Center, the first place crashed into the World Trade Center’s North Tower just one minute earlier.
Clarke recalled: "It was total chaos being stuck in the basement of a building. All I could think about then was my parents and if I died, what it would do to them. My heart was racing, I was paralyzed. I couldn’t even speak. ‘Get me outside, I need to be outside'.”
Just moments later, a second plane struck the second tower and destroyed the 77th floor where Clarke typically spent her day.
Recognizing how close she came to death, Clarke credited Paltrow for saving her life.
“If I had made that train I would have been at my desk on the 77th floor of 2 World Trade Center," she said.
Paltrow later heard about the impact of the encounter when Clarke wrote her a letter.
She shared her side of the story in 2011, Reuters reports, saying: "I was on the way home and it was the morning of September 11 - not that I knew at the time what that meant - and a girl was jaywalking across the street and we kind of both stopped at the same time and waited a really long time.
"Ten years later I got a letter from her saying that she had been late for work... It was an extraordinary story and all I could think about is all of the people who had experiences like that that day, but aren't able to reach out because it wasn't a recognizable person."