We are no longer accepting comments on this article. Her real name is Alicia Head, she is Spanish, and on Sept. 11, 2001, she was in Barcelona attending business school. Nobody raised it in Barcelona because nobody saw the photo there, 7,000 kilometers away. How could you? After a brief confrontation, he said, he turned off the camera and walked away. Alicia came to Esade [business school] in the early 2000s, to take an MBA, and at first she was, one of the most popular people in the class. Tania Head, who claimed a place in the public's heart for having narrowly escaped death in the south tower of the World Trade Center "America's most famous survivor," the authors call her . Tania's arm was reattached, but she did not leave hospital until Thanksgiving, in November. How had she gotten there? Her name was regularly mentioned in media reports of the attacks. You can find the latest New York Today He connected his story with one of the most striking of the tragedy, that of, Welles Crowther, the Hero with the Red Handkerchief. Not only was Tania a survivor, she lost a loved one that day too. It is now necessary to uncover the veil of the story: when the two planes collided with the Towers, Alicia Esteve was not in New York: she was not even in the American continent, but was. Did that mean I forgave her? Required fields are marked *. When she woke up again, it was September 7 and she was in the hospital. Tania had never been to the United States until 2003. [8][11] Head claimed that her fianc Dave was killed in the North Tower (WTC 1), though in later tellings of the story, she said that "Dave" was actually her husband. On 21st September 2001, 10 days after 9/11, Alicia Esteve Head was enrolling at Barcelona business school, ESADE. Within the unpaid role, she lobbied on behalf of the group and achieved some success, helping grant access for survivors to visit the Ground Zero site. At the top of the stairs, a wave of panic hit her. They grabbed their phones and began calling friends and relatives, begging them to switch on the TV news. Further investigation suggested she had committed no crime. Spanish newspaper, El Pais, reports that she is still registered as living at her home in Barcelona, although this has not been confirmed. Tania Head is a real person. Later that year, Tania was fired from her job due to this exposure. An ex secondary school teacher, Shona has a strong interest in education. Her family was wealthy, but her father and brother went to prison in 1992. 17:02 EDT 06 Aug 2021 None of those institutions had any record of her. Testimonials for Al Jazeera Net about the worst disaster for the health sector in Sudan, Sudan today. Facebook gives people the power to. They discovered Tanias whereabouts on 9/11, that her arm had almost been severed, but in a car accident in her teens, and that the family of the man she claimed was her husband had never heard of her. As I got to know Tania, I couldn't help but notice her two-sided personality: the strong, empowered warrior and the person on the brink of despair. It's been 20 years since the terrorist attacks of September 11 changed the world forever, and two decades later the tragic stories of the events that unfolded on 9/11 still haunt us all. "She had been very subtle when she began to tell her story," says Forn, "she had very little by little attracting the attention of the rest of the victims, very delicately, but with a very powerful story. Even after I found out the truth: that Tania Head was not in the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, that she was never married to a man named Dave who died that day and that she was studying in Barcelona during the time she claimed to have been in a burn unit--it still wasn't easy to pry myself from her powerful hold. Its hard to discredit it all. Because as the years went by, careful observers spotted strange inconsistencies in her unforgettable testimony. In Heads case it wasnt an illness that she pretended to have. , In 2003, Alicia Esteve Head had relocated to New York and was going by the name of Tania. No one was listening. He also couldn't help noticing that the scars on her arm, though serious, didn't look as though the limb had been reattached. The lights flickered off and on. Once the story got out, she went missing from. Both the book and film noted that Head was seen with her mother in New York on September 14, 2011. It was this combination of mystery and amazement that drew me to her. ", The journalist Marta Forn tells PAPEL that back to Barcelona after years in Cuba as a correspondent, working for. Thank you for your support!!! Tania hadn't been in WTC 2 on 9/11. Alicia Esteve Head ( s-TAY-b, Catalan pronunciation: [lisi ste ht]; born July 31, 1973) is a Spanish woman who claimed to be a survivor of the attack Le Monde investigation: Are sanctions on Russia really working? Through her work, Tania also secured state funding for the Survivors Network, but as her story gained world-wide media attention, the details Tania added to her story stirred up suspicion from other survivors. His obituary, though, made no mention of Tania. Head's real name turned out to be Alicia Esteve Head. Alicia Esteve Head (/steb/ s-TAY-b, Catalan pronunciation:[lisi ste ht]; born July 31, 1973)[1] is a Spanish woman who claimed to be a survivor of the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, under the name Tania Head. I began shooting an inspirational tale of overcoming grief and learning to re-embrace life. Head told stories of surviving on the 78th floor encountering a dying man who gave her an inscribed wedding ring that she eventually returned to his wife, escaping with the help of 24-year-old Welles Crowther, who is credited with saving the lives of several people and perished when the tower fell and the horrible tale of losing her fianc Dave in the North Tower. Tania left New York City. In The Woman Who Wasnt There, to be released next month, the authors, Robin Gaby Fisher and Angelo J. Guglielmo Jr., tell the story in a straightforward manner, at first relating Ms. Heads Her actual name was Alicia Esteve Head and she was from Spain. According to the criteria of The Trust Project. Wake up to the day's most important news. Another choking cloud of dust smothered them. Tania hadnt been in WTC 2 on 9/11. Among the 500 survivors in the support group who shared their story, Tania's stood out. Registered in England 112955. I was blind to the painful, bitter revelations that would end Tania's reign as the ultimate survivor and, ironically, move her circle of friends past the illusion she wove and back to reality. She lost consciousness again. She quickly centred herself amongst the survivors sharing their stories with the media, and joined Gerry Bogacz's World Trade Center Survivors' Network. Elizabeth Holmes has 11-year jail sentence delayed, Cosmopolitan, Part of the Hearst UK Fashion & Beauty Network. And sorry. She was focusing on her breathing, trying to remember yoga techniques, when a woman at the far end of the sky lobby started screaming: 'Another plane!'. [8] Head was interviewed in the media, invited to speak at university conferences, and in 2005, was chosen to lead tours for the Tribute WTC Visitor Center, where she was photographed with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and former New York Governor George Pataki. If true, this would have made her one of only nineteen people at or above the point of impact to have survived. His camera running, Mr. Guglielmo said he implored: How could you show up here during the 10th anniversary? She seems like a deeply troubled person, I hope shes gotten her life in order too. She told them in part the truth, but in another part a lie, : it had been a car accident, that was true, but she said she had had it with her boyfriend, who was a neurosurgeon, with his Ferrari.". It was noted that the facts of her story had changed over the years. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. No joke: in the crash, his left arm was vivisected, which flew off and had to be urgently reimplanted in the nearest operating room. Alicia Head was the fifth child and only daughter of a wealthy Spanish family. Please only use it for a guidance and Alicia Esteve Head's actual income may vary a lot from the dollar amount shown above. 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The story of the man in a red bandana was copied from a real survivor's story that featured a person named Ling Young who was in the sky lobby when the second plane hit. Head's passionate dedication to the 9/11 support group she ran caught the eye of Gerry Bogacz, founder of the World Trade Center Survivors Network. I had no way of knowing that I was embroiled in a story involving false identity, deceit and betrayal. Of course, how could she not be? Panicked by the reporters, she went to a lawyer to prepare a statement but as she did so, she admitted several inconsistencies in her story. [5] She attended the University of Barcelona and worked for Hotel de la Villa Olmpica S.A., a Spanish hotel company. He gave her his wedding band and made her promise to find his widow. The story was powerful. A man with a red bandana tied over his face was beating her with a jacket. Namely: she was in the second tower when United Airlines 175 hit her, and she was even, as a Merril Lynch worker, on one of the floors above the impact, on. [6] Tania's lie unravelled after a .css-tjvzc4{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;text-decoration-thickness:0.0625rem;text-decoration-color:inherit;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:inherit;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;border-bottom:thin solid #6F6F6F;}.css-tjvzc4:hover{color:#595959;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;}New York Times investigation into her story. The Wikipedia entry on Alicia Esteve Head said (as of Tuesday): In the documentary The 9/11 Faker, The more I resisted, the more she pursued. [7], Head regularly recounted her claims to Ground Zero tour groups in vivid detail, saying, "I was there at the towers. Here, we take a look back at her story, and ask, where is Tania Head now? It even has its ownpsychological term, pseudologia fantastica. That night, I replayed the video and cringed. In a strange coincidence, in a city of eight million people, I crossed paths with Alicia Esteve Head while on my way to adopt a kitten on 1st Avenue. I had to keep reminding myself that she was lying because, in a bizarre twist of fate, it was her deception that seemed unreal. She had been in class at ESADE Business School in Barcelona, Spain on the day of the attacks. Tania Head, who claimed a place in the publics heart for having narrowly escaped death in the south tower of the World Trade Center Americas Had he then already decided to transmute into Tania Head? The arm damaged on 9/11. By 2005, she was leading tours at the WTC visitors' centre and, on one occasion, showed New York mayors Michael Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani around the site. Two reporters at the New York Times, Serge Kovaleski and Dave Dunlap, read about Tania's story and were puzzled to find that she had not been interviewed in 2001, during the immediate aftermath. In moments, the line for the elevators snaked all the way round the lobby. She devoted months of research to discovering the identity of the man who entrusted his wedding ring to her. "[11] She was featured in retrospective 9/11 articles as a representative of the 20,000 surviving victims who escaped the damaged buildings. What it's about: Alicia Esteve Head claimed to have been on the 78th floor of the World Trade Center during the attacks on 9/11. Angelo Guglielmo's film about Tania Head, also told in a book co-written with Robin Gaby Fisher, is called The Woman Who Wasn't There.