Michael\nwasn\u2019t born blind, but he was born fifty-nine days early. It was due to the medical\nprocedure of placing premature babies in sealed incubators and pumping them full\nof oxygen that he lost his eyesight. He was one of more than ten thousand\npremature babies that were blinded by this medical procedure between the early\nnineteen forties and early fifties. Despite this tragedy his parents chose to\nencourage and raise him as if he was any other boy. Michael learned to rely on\nhis other four senses as he ran around the house and even rode his bike on the suburban\nstreet. One sense he learned to pay reliance on was his sense of feeling. He\ndeveloped this sense to the point that he could feel objects in front of him\nand avoid them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Michael\u2019s\nstory highlights the struggle of the blind in America. He was involved in the\nlegal battle to allow dogs in schools and public transportation. He explains that the high unemployment rate\namong the visually impaired is due to a lack of public awareness of the wide\nrange of skills and talents that the blind possess. He also stresses that being\nblind is way down his list of what he identifies as and how he things of\nhimself as an independent, capable person. The worst thing you can do to a\nblind person is patronize them with special treatment when they have not asked\nfor help. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Thunder\nDog<\/em> also\nhighlights the life of a guide dog. It takes years to train puppies from birth\nand then their careers can be cut short by injury or sickness. It delves in the\nrelationship between the blind and their dog, how the blind must have control\nbut trust the dog. Michael recalls one guide dog that would always walk him\ninto mailboxes until he learned to jerk on the lease every time he felt the\npresence of a mailbox nearby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ultimate test of this trust between Michael and his eleventh guide dog, Roselle, comes on September 11, 2001 when American Airlines Flight 11 is flown into the 94th and 98th floors of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Michael is on the seventy-eight floor, where he works as a sales representative for Quantum\/ATL, a Fortune 500 company. He is just fifteen floors below the site of impact. He hears the boom and then paper and debris brushing the window behind him. Then he can feel the building tilting twenty feet and hears ceiling tiles falling. He is afraid he is going to die but stops worrying when he sees how calmly Roselle, who is afraid of thunder, is behaving. If he was in really danger, she would be panicking. He, a friend named David Frank, and thirty other people decide to evacuate. Before leaving, Michael calls his wife, Karen, to assure her that he is okay. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Michael chooses to trust Roselle as she leads him and the other people down one thousand, four hundred sixty-three steps of the North Tower’s stairwell. In the concrete stairwell no one has cell service, but Michael, a frequent flyer, smells something he recognizes from airports, jet fuel. He says out loud that a plane has hit the building. He hears someone yell \u201cBurn victims coming through\u201d and can feel people rushing past him. His friend David describes the victims to him. A woman stops walking and starts to have a panic attack. Roselle’s training kicks in. She nudges the woman, who pets her, calming down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n David calls out each floor number as they continue to descend. At each floor, more people join the throng. At one-point Michael can feel his throat becoming scorched, but since Roselle is calm, he realizes the fire has not spread down the stairwell. He counts the stairs to fight boredom. Ten stairs, then a landing, then nine stairs, then a landing, then ten stairs. The lights flicker and he is afraid the power will go out, plunging everyone into equal darkness. \u201cDon\u2019t anybody worry. Roselle and I are giving a half-price special to get you out of here if the lights go out,\u201d he says. This lightened the mood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Even\nthough temperatures in the stairwell are rising, the shared anxiety and fear of\nthe group creates a team. People began joking about having to lose weight,\nhaving a heavy dessert at the end of the day and never wanting to see another\nstaircase in their life. Someone broke open a vending machine and water bottles\nwere passed out among the group. Michael let Roselle lick the brim of one of\nthe bottles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He\nhears firemen rushing past him up the stairs. They meet the tired and sweaty\nfirst responders on the 30th<\/sup> floor. One fireman stops and pets\nRoselle and offers Michael help. Michael, knowing that the firefighters are not\neven halfway to the fire that needs fighting, insisted that he was okay. This caught\nthe fireman off guard, since he was use to people obeying his orders. He gave\nRoselle one more pat and then headed up the stairs, possibly to his death. Every\nfireman that passed Michael and Roselle asked him the same question, \u201cDo you\nneed help?\u201d Each time Michael says he is alright. Spontaneous clapping broke out\nwhenever the firemen passed. Michael wonders if Roselle can smell courage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The\ncloser they get to the ground floor, the faster Michael wants to go, but the crowd\nin the stairwell is moving slower due to everyone moving to the left to let the\nfiremen pass. Michael feels that the steps are now slippery and wet from the\nsprinkling system. Roselle tries to lap the water up, but Michael is afraid jet\nfuel might be mixed in with it, so he jerks her harness up. When they reach the\nground floor, it\u2019s a warzone with debris everywhere in the ankle-deep water.\nStill Michael finds time to let Roselle sit and relax. He pets her head,\ntelling her what a good job she did. She shakes her whole body in response. An\nFBI agent then directs Michael and David to take an underground concourse out\nof the tower. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Once\nout of the concourse and on the street, Michael must trust Roselle even more as she\nleads him through the dust cloud from the collapsed South Tower. He will never\nforget the sound of it collapsing, a cross between a freight train and a glass waterfall.\nDebris is falling everywhere and hitting everyone. It is every man for himself,\nexcept for Michael and Roselle who have to rely on each other. At one point\nMichael actually picks up Roselle bodily as he runs. With even his guide dog blinded\nby the smoke and dust, Michael only has one person left to rely on, God. He can\nfeel His presence as he runs with Roselle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Michael\nand Roselle are forced to take shelter in a subway station. Roselle stops at\nthe last minute, keeping Michael from falling down the stairs. Once down the stairway\nthey encounter a woman whose eyes are full of dirt when she cries out for help.\nShe afraid she might fall on the subway tracks. Michael takes her hand and\ntells her to trust Roselle to keep them away from the edge. With just a little\nirony, Michael notes how a lifetime of permanent\nblindness prepared him to help this woman who was temporally blinded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fortunately,\nMichael and Roselle are far away from the World Trade Center when the North\nTower collapses. At 10:32 a.m. Michael is finally able to call his wife Karen\nto assure her that he is alright. It\u2019s 5:30 in the evening when Michael arrives\nhome, Roselle runs off to play, another day of guiding her human accomplished. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After\n9\/11 Michael became Public Affairs Director for Guide Dogs for the Blind. He\nand Roselle would appear on several television shows including Larry King\nLive<\/em> and Regis and Kelly<\/em>. They would also ride in the\nPasadena Rose Parade in 2002. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Roselle\nwas not the only guide dog to behave heroically at the World Trade Center on\nSeptember 11th<\/sup>. Salty led Omar\nRivera, who worked for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, from the\n71st<\/sup> floor of Tower 1. He refused to leave Omar\u2019s side. Both Roselle\nand Salty would receive the Dickin Medal from the British charity People’s\nDispensary for Sick Animals<\/p>\n\n\n\n Michael\nand Roselle\u2019s story is an inspiring one of perseverance, endurance and faith\nand trust in God and each other. I believe that the dog theme would make it a\ngreat way to introduce children to one of the darkest days in American history.\nIts inspirational themes would make it a good subject for a movie about 9\/11,\nmaking it be sobering but not depressing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because\nit is a light of inspiration on one of the darkest days in American history, I believe\nthat Thunder Dog by Michael Hingson Should Be A Movie. <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thatshouldbeamoviewebseries.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/3921_nurses_caring_for_a_premature_infant_pgh_c1950.jpg?resize=650%2C437&ssl=1\")
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