‘I love you sweetie’: Canadian family that lost husband, father on 9/11 reflects on deadly attack

MONTREAL (CityNews) — Twenty years after 9/11, Montrealer Kimmy Chedel still vividly remembers the moment she learned the twin towers were hit.

While at home in New Jersey, her 39-year-old husband Frank Doyle had been working in the World Trade Center’s south tower. He was head of the equity trading desk for Keefe Bruyette and Woods, an investment banking firm.

On that day, Chedel was able to get her husband on the phone after the first plane hit the north tower at 8:46 a.m.

“I remember having a hard time putting the key in the door to the house because my hand was just shaking like crazy and I was so desperate to get to a phone to try to call Frank,” she said.

“I was so relieved he could pick up the phone. I could hear his voice and he said to me right away, ‘if you think we got rocked in 1993, this was ten times worse.’ Because in 1993, we both lived through the World Trade Center bombing, and he said they were knocked right out of their seats onto the floor when the plane hit the other building.”

Chedel says she urged her husband to leave but he stayed put and asked her to call his mother in Michigan and her mother in Quebec to reassure them he was OK.

“As I was speaking with my mother telling her that he was OK, I had a call waiting from my close friend who lived in Englewood and said, ‘Kimmy I don’t know if you’re watching the news,’ and she said, ‘Franky’s building was just hit.'”

That was at 9:03 a.m. United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into floors 77 through 85 of the south tower.

Kimmy says she then tried non-stop to get through to Frank’s cell phone.

“At 9:22 the phone rang. And I picked up and it was Frank. He was very calm. He says ‘I need you to listen to me carefully.’

“He says, ‘I’ve been up to the rooftop. And the rooftop doors are locked. We’re trapped on the 87th floor and it’s getting difficult to breathe,'” recounted Chedel.

“I could hear lots of voices. I could hear shuffling and coughing. I could hear the glass breaking. I could assume it was for the fire extinguisher. And he said ‘I know you know this, but I love you sweetie and I need you to promise me to tell Zoe and Garrett every day how much their papa loves them.’ He says ‘but right now I need your help. You need to call 911 and you need to tell them that we’re trapped on the 87th floor.’

“And he said ‘I love you’ and then he hung up and I didn’t realize that that would be our last call.”

Chedel’s children Zoe and Garrett were two and one at the time of the 9/11 attacks.

“I was in the living room holding Zoe and our friend Sandy was holding Garrett, and we were watching the TV and his building was on fire. The first building was on fire and we were actually watching the screen live when the building collapsed at 9:59. His building was the second to get hit and the first to go down.”

A month after 9/11, the family packed up and moved to a cottage in St. Sauveur, Que., to be closer to loved ones and escape the realities of living so close to ground zero.

It wasn’t until late October that Frank Doyle’s remains were identified. Chedel got the call on Halloween.

WATCH: Full interview with Kimmy Chedel, Zoe Doyle and Garrett Doyle

“We both studied international relations and geopolitics, so we’ve learned so much more about 9/11 and its effects,” said Zoe Doyle, Frank’s daughter. “So not just our little bubble in our family but the greater world impacts, and it’s kind of surreal that it’s been 20 years.”

“It was a huge event that rocked the world,” said Garrett Doyle, Frank’s son. “Not even just the United States, but geopolitical events went into motion all over the place. Everyone was impacted by 9/11 in some way or another.”