Debra Lynn Gibbon (November 27, 1957 – September 11, 2001)
September 10, 2006
Debra Lynn Gibbon, 43 years old, was a senior vice president at Aon Risk Services. She worked on the 105th floor of the south tower.
Aon Exec Stayed Active With 3 Teens
Nov. 9, 2001
Debra Lynn Gibbon had found that elusive balance in her life.A mother of three teen-agers, the 43-year-old Long Valley, N.J., woman was a senior vice president at Aon Risk Services. She worked on the 105th floor of the south tower.
Despite a busy career, Gibbon was active in the day-to-day activities of her children: Zachary, 18, Heather,16, and Adam, 13.
She loved sailing and spending time with her kids at a beach home.
Born in Orange, she was raised in Maplewood and Basking Ridge, N.J.
Gibbon also was a registered nurse with a certification in occupational health nursing and safety. She had worked at Aon for more than two years.
Kathleen Kernicky (The Sun-Sentinel)
A Dream of the Sea
Debra Lynn Fischer Gibbon was the kind of person who inspired confidence, even in strangers. Meeting her for the first time, Warren J. Mura, an executive vice president at Aon Corporation, immediately wanted to hire her. Months later, he succeeded in luring her from Wausau Insurance Companies, where — a registered nurse — she had worked for 17 years in the area of occupational health.
At Aon, Ms. Gibbon, a senior vice president, coordinated services for the company’s top clients. “She was one of those people who would walk into a room, and you would listen to what they had to say,†Mr. Mura said.
Divorced and the mother of three teenagers, Ms. Gibbon, 43, had a punishing schedule that included a 90-minute commute from Washington Township in Morris County, N.J. But she managed to attend her children’s soccer and basketball games and sew her own curtains, said her sister, Karen Zaccaria-Cockrell. As a girl, Ms. Gibbon spent two weeks sailing on Lake Saranac in the Adirondacks, and had longed ever since to live by the sea, her sister said. “That was her dream,†Ms. Zaccaria-Cockrell said. “To be on the water.â€
Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on April 7, 2002.
DEBRA GIBBON, 43, HANDLED LIFE WITH APLOMB
At the hour of her death, Debra Lynn Fischer Gibbon’s thoughts were on the people around whom she had built her life — her three teenage children, her parents, her brother and her sister.
Mrs. Gibbon, 43, of Long Valley, a senior vice president at AON Risk Services Inc., was leading a business meeting on the 105th floor of Two World Trade Center on the morning of Sept. 11. When the first tower burst into flames after being hit by a hijacked airplane, she called her brother, Adam Fischer III, and asked him to let the rest of the family know she was OK.
“God bless you,†Adam Fischer remembers telling his sister. “Please get out of there.â€
The second plane struck her building before she could.“She loved her children with all her heart, and she loved her job,†Mr. Fischer said. “She loved her parents and her sister and brother and their families. Her life was dedicated to her family and her career.â€
Mrs. Gibbon was born in Orange and raised in Maplewood and Basking Ridge. She graduated from Ridge High School in 1975. Four years later, she earned a nursing degree from West Virginia’s Wesleyan College.
She was a registered nurse with a certification in occupational health nursing and safety. She was accredited by the Board of Certified Safety Professionals.
Mrs. Gibbon spent 17 years at Wassau Insurance before going to work at AON 21/2 years ago.“Debra was a true professional — well-respected by her colleagues and clients,†said Warren Mula, managing director and executive vice president of AON. “She will be sadly missed by all who knew her.â€
Mrs. Gibbon always balanced the demands of her work and home lives. She worked full-time as she raised her three children. Nonetheless, she was always involved with their soccer teams and their many other activities, her brother said.
When she wasn’t working, Mrs. Gibbon enjoyed sailing. She spent as much time as she could with her children and extended family at a beach home in Lavallette, Mr. Fischer said.
Mrs. Gibbon was a member of Long Valley Presbyterian Church.Surviving, in addition to her brother, are her three children, Zachary, 18; Heather, 16, and Adam, 13; her parents, Joan and Adam Fischer Jr.; her sister, Karen Zaccaria-Cockrell; and five nephews.
A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 2, at the Basking Ridge Presbyterian Church.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Debra Lynn Fischer Gibbon Memorial Fund, c/o Merrill Lynch, 172 Main St., Chester, N.J. 07930.
Profile by Tom Feeney published in THE STAR-LEDGER.
“Debra Gibbon is my mother she is the best mother a family could ask for my life feels so empty without her, i am still waiting for that one day that one moment when she walks through the door and makes our family whole again. and till that day comes i will never forget you mom i love you with all my heart…†– Debra’s daughter, submitted on her tribute site 2/22/2003
As the mother of two my heart goes out to Debra and her children. Once you’re a mother the only reason you’re ever concerned about your own safety is in terms of how it will affect your children. As much as you can you want to protect them from all the horrors of life. But on September 11th Debra couldn’t protect them anymore.
Debra Lynn Gibbon isn’t just a name or a number associated with 9/11. She was a mother, a sister, a daughter and a friend. Although we didn’t know her personally, we here at Hooah Wife are proud to join in this tribute to the victims of 9/11. God bless you all!
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September 10th, 2006 at 8:14 am
Well done, Silke. Thanx!
September 10th, 2006 at 10:58 am
Thank you Silke for this wonderful tribute!
September 10th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
Greta thank you for your Tribute to Debra Lynn Gibbon. It is very special!!!
September 10th, 2006 at 2:41 pm
“Once you’re a mother the only reason you’re ever concerned about your own safety is in terms of how it will affect your children. As much as you can you want to protect them from all the horrors of life. But on September 11th Debra couldn’t protect them anymore.”
You’ve said it all.
September 10th, 2006 at 3:13 pm
All the credit goes to Silke on this one!
September 10th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
Excellent job, Silke. Very touching.
September 10th, 2006 at 6:50 pm
Wonderful tribute Silke.
September 10th, 2006 at 7:20 pm
great Memorial.
September 10th, 2006 at 8:09 pm
2996 tribute to victims of 9/11 – Terrence E Adder
Before 9/11 the only view I had of the New York City skyline was from the top floor of my home in New Jersey. On any day I could look out the window and see the upper 30 floors of the World Trade Center.
When both buildings disappeared from view t…
September 10th, 2006 at 8:41 pm
What a fine tribute to a lovely lady whose life was too short. Thank you Greta!
September 10th, 2006 at 9:21 pm
Thanks for the well done tribute to a victim of 9/11. Now we know that Debra Lynn Gibbon was a wonderful woman, and the exact type of American that makes America so great.
September 10th, 2006 at 11:43 pm
That was a wonderful tribute, Silke! She sounds like an amazing person. Sad to think that there are nearly 3000 more stories out there of folks who didn’t deserve to die like that. A tragedy I hope we never forget!
Thanks again, Timmer
September 11th, 2006 at 1:09 am
Carnival of Blue Stars #17 – 9-11-2006 Edition
This special additon of the Carnival of Blue Stars is dedicated to the memories of those who perished in the horrifc attacks on our homeland 5 years ago.
September 11th, 2006 at 7:32 am
Thanks
September 11th, 2006 at 8:10 am
9-11 five years later- In memory of Ken Marino
Just some images of that day. One is of Kenneth Marino, age 40. He was a NYC firefigther who died on 9-11. Ken is as close as TFM comes to knowing someone from that fateful day. See Ken and I shared a hobby and we both played in these tournaments ……
September 11th, 2006 at 10:12 am
Web Reconnaissance for 09/11/2006
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, today focusing on 9/11/01
September 11th, 2006 at 11:54 am
Thank you for this tribute to Debra. As a mother of two, the fact that she was a mother, spending time with her kids, also struck me. She’s gone. But we know she is not forgotten.
We must not forget.
We must remember.
I’m not sure how we can remember all of them, but these tributes are a part of the remembering.
I wrote about Laura Gilly.
September 11th, 2006 at 12:41 pm
[...] Debra Lynn Gibbon (WTC) Hooah Wife & Friends [...]
September 11th, 2006 at 1:29 pm
[...] Debra Lynn Gibbon (WTC) Hooah Wife & Friends [...]
September 11th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
[...] Debra Lynn Gibbon (WTC) Hooah Wife & Friends [...]
September 12th, 2006 at 4:04 pm
You done her proud!
WC
September 20th, 2006 at 10:26 pm
[...] Hooah Wife remembers Debra Lynn Gibbon, senior vice president at Aon Risk Services, WTC. Cozy Reader remembers Edward T. Keane, Port Authority Engineer, WTC. Alabama Improper remembers Kirsten L. Christophe, Aon Corporation, WTC. [...]
September 23rd, 2006 at 6:59 pm
[...] [...]
October 13th, 2006 at 10:32 pm
One thing that struck me as odd in the days after 9/11 was Bush saying “We will not tolerate conspiracy theories [regarding 9/11]“. Sure enough there have been some wacky conspiracy theories surrounding the events of that day. The most far-fetched and patently ridiculous one that I’ve ever heard goes like this: Nineteen hijackers who claimed to be devout Muslims but yet were so un-Muslim as to be getting drunk all the time, doing cocaine and frequenting strip clubs decided to hijack four airliners and fly them into buildings in the northeastern U.S., the area of the country that is the most thick with fighter bases. After leaving a Koran on a barstool at a strip bar after getting shitfaced drunk on the night before, then writing a suicide note/inspirational letter that sounded like it was written by someone with next to no knowledge of Islam, they went to bed and got up the next morning hung over and carried out their devious plan. Nevermind the fact that of the four “pilots” among them there was not a one that could handle a Cessna or a Piper Cub let alone fly a jumbo jet, and the one assigned the most difficult task of all, Hani Hanjour, was so laughably incompetent that he was the worst fake “pilot” of the bunch. Nevermind the fact that they received very rudimentary flight training at Pensacola Naval Air Station, making them more likely to have been C.I.A. assets than Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. So on to the airports. These “hijackers” somehow managed to board all four airliners with their tickets, yet not even ONE got his name on any of the flight manifests. So they hijack all four airliners and at this time passengers on United 93 start making a bunch of cell phone calls from 35,000 feet in the air to tell people what was going on. Nevermind the fact that cell phones wouldn’t work very well above 4,000 feet, and wouldn’t work at ALL above 8,000 feet. But the conspiracy theorists won’t let that fact get in the way of a good fantasy. That is one of the little things you “aren’t supposed to think about”. Nevermind that one of the callers called his mom and said his first and last name, more like he was reading from a list than calling his own mom. Anyway, when these airliners each deviated from their flight plan and didn’t respond to ground control, NORAD would any other time have followed standard operating procedure (and did NOT have to be told by F.A.A. that there were hijackings because they were watching the same events unfold on their own radar) which means fighter jets would be scrambled from the nearest base where they were available on standby within a few minutes, just like every other time when airliners stray off course. But of course on 9/11 this didn’t happen, not even close. Somehow these “hijackers” must have used magical powers to cause NORAD to stand down, as ridiculous as this sounds because total inaction from the most high-tech and professional Air Force in the world would be necessary to carry out their tasks. So on the most important day in its history the Air Force was totally worthless. Then they had to make one of the airliners look like a smaller plane, because unknown to them the Naudet brothers had a videocamera to capture the only known footage of the North Tower crash, and this footage shows something that is not at all like a jumbo jet, but didn’t have to bother with the South Tower jet disguising itself because that was the one we were “supposed to see”. Anyway, as for the Pentagon they had to have Hani Hanjour fly his airliner like it was a fighter plane, making a high G-force corkscrew turn that no real airliner can do, in making its descent to strike the Pentagon. But these “hijackers” wanted to make sure Rumsfeld survived so they went out of their way to hit the farthest point in the building from where Rumsfeld and the top brass are located. And this worked out rather well for the military personnel in the Pentagon, since the side that was hit was the part that was under renovation at the time with few military personnel present compared to construction workers. Still more fortuitous for the Pentagon, the side that was hit had just before 9/11 been structurally reinforced to prevent a large fire there from spreading elsewhere in the building. Awful nice of them to pick that part to hit, huh? Then the airliner vaporized itself into nothing but tiny unidentifiable pieces no bigger than a fist, unlike the crash of a real airliner when you will be able to see at least some identifiable parts, like crumpled wings, broken tail section etc. Why, Hani Hanjour the terrible pilot flew that airliner so good that even though he hit the Pentagon on the ground floor the engines didn’t even drag the ground!! Imagine that!! Though the airliner vaporized itself on impact it only made a tiny 16 foot hole in the building. Amazing. Meanwhile, though the planes hitting the Twin Towers caused fires small enough for the firefighters to be heard on their radios saying “We just need 2 hoses and we can knock this fire down” attesting to the small size of it, somehow they must have used magical powers from beyond the grave to make this morph into a raging inferno capable of making the steel on all forty-seven main support columns (not to mention the over 100 smaller support columns) soften and buckle, then all fail at once. Hmmm. Then still more magic was used to make the building totally defy physics as well as common sense in having the uppermost floors pass through the remainder of the building as quickly, meaning as effortlessly, as falling through air, a feat that without magic could only be done with explosives. Then exactly 30 minutes later the North Tower collapses in precisely the same freefall physics-defying manner. Incredible. Not to mention the fact that both collapsed at a uniform rate too, not slowing down, which also defies physics because as the uppermost floors crash into and through each successive floor beneath them they would shed more and more energy each time, thus slowing itself down. Common sense tells you this is not possible without either the hijackers’ magical powers or explosives. To emphasize their telekinetic prowess, later in the day they made a third building, WTC # 7, collapse also at freefall rate though no plane or any major debris hit it. Amazing guys these magical hijackers. But we know it had to be “Muslim hijackers” the conspiracy theorist will tell you because (now don’t laugh) one of their passports was “found” a couple days later near Ground Zero, miraculously “surviving” the fire that we were told incinerated planes, passengers and black boxes, and also “survived” the collapse of the building it was in. When common sense tells you if that were true then they should start making buildings and airliners out of heavy paper and plastic so as to be “indestructable” like that magic passport. The hijackers even used their magical powers to bring at least seven of their number back to life, to appear at american embassies outraged at being blamed for 9/11!! BBC reported on that and it is still online. Nevertheless, they also used magical powers to make the american government look like it was covering something up in the aftermath of this, what with the hasty removal of the steel debris and having it driven to ports in trucks with GPS locators on them, to be shipped overseas to China and India to be melted down. When common sense again tells you that this is paradoxical in that if the steel was so unimportant that they didn’t bother saving some for analysis but so important as to require GPS locators on the trucks with one driver losing his job because he stopped to get lunch. Hmmmm. Yes, this whole story smacks of the utmost idiocy and fantastical far-fetched lying, but it is amazingly enough what some people believe. Even now, five years later, the provably false fairy tale of the “nineteen hijackers” is heard repeated again and again, and is accepted without question by so many Americans. Which is itself a testament to the innate psychological cowardice of the American sheeple, i mean people, and their abject willingness to believe something, ANYTHING, no matter how ridiculous in order to avoid facing a scary uncomfortable truth. Time to wake up America.
September 11th, 2007 at 4:47 am
[...] I know this is usually an upbeat blog, but today the only thing that seemed appropriate was a tribute to those who were killed on 9/11, 2001. Last year I participated in project 2,996 on my other blog and honored Debra Lynn Gibbon. Saturday I attended the Freedom Walk in Baton Rouge, where we honored 3 of Lousiana’s fallen. Below are the names and 2,996 tributes that were written for each of them. Louis Calvin Williams from Mandeville US Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Kevin W. Yokum US Navy Lieutenant Michael Scott Lamana [...]
September 11th, 2007 at 7:42 am
[...] I know this is usually an upbeat blog, but today the only thing that seemed appropriate was a tribute to those who were killed on 9/11, 2001. Last year I participated in project 2,996 on my other blog and honored Debra Lynn Gibbon. Saturday I attended the Freedom Walk in Baton Rouge, where we honored 3 of Louisiana’s fallen. Below are the names and 2,996 tributes that were written for each of them. [...]
October 6th, 2009 at 3:22 am
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