What it was like to jump from the World Trade Center on 09-11-01

VARIOUS ^ | 10-01-01 | Editorial Staff

[vannrox]

What it was like to jump from
the World Trade Center
(on 09-11-01)

View from the Open Promenade

View from the Observatory

Inside the Observatory.

On the top. Imagine trying to be rescued by "chopper.

Its windy up top.

This is a view from the top.

A view looking at the tower next door.

A view towards the river.

On the top.

View UP UP UP.

Photo, from World Trade Center observation deck, looking north to midtown Manhattan.

Photo, from World Trade Center observation deck, looking east to the Brooklyn Bridge and beyond

[backhoe]

I thank you for posting this- yes, it is gruesome- but we need to think about it, and remember.

I recall reading in some long-forgotten book about WWI that the crews of the high-altitude Zeppelins faced a grisly choice when their airships were hit.

Ride it down, and burn to death ( no helium for Germany- they only had hydrogen gas )-
Jump, and fall for over 5 minutes ( it's a long, long drop from 20,000+ feet ) before dying from impact.

Gruesome.

Yet living, breathing men made those choices, as did the poor devils in those towers.

We need to think on this, and never forget....

[Age of Reason]

Triangle Factory Fire

[sweetliberty]

Bump for the late comers.

[NYC GOP Chick]

I know that if I was making a decision in a rational state of mind that I would not. I do not think pain and emotion should be a factor in making the decision. Now it's true that under such extreem circumstance I could become irrational, but being irrational is not something I understand or relate too very well, and it is not a certainty that I would become irrational either.

LOL! You have no fricking idea of what it was like that day! I'd love to see just how cool and rational you'd be if an jumbo jet full of fuel crashed into the building where you work -- a few floors below you -- and the flames and smoke were so intense, as the fire was burning between 1000-2000 degrees and coming up fast on you.

It's obvious that you've never been in a life-threatening situation, let alone one of this magnitude. So please stop pretending that you know what you'd do. Nobody knows how they're going to react in a situation like this, but we just hope and pray that if it happens, we can make the right decisions and survive it.

To make a choice to jump while in a rational state of mind requires you to assume that either there is no God to save you (something I know is false), or that God has no intention of saving you. It may be true that it's your time to die, but it might not be and you never know if you don't try, so for me, to give up and choose to jump without being irrational, is a rejection of my faith that I could not do.

And why would God favor you over the 5000+ whom he did not save that morning? How arrogant. Even more arrogant than assuming that you'd be so calm and rational during that kind of crisis. It's painfully obvious that you've *never* been in any situation even remotely resembling what happened here on 9/11, so please stop trying to lord your self-perceived superiority over the rest of us mere mortals. Unless you're a trained rescue professional, I'd love to see just how rational you'd be in that kind of a situation.

[lavrenti]

What would you say to the man I watched hang from a window for nearly an hour before finally letting go? Or to the woman who stripped to her underwear and stood, in bare feet, on a shattered windowsill for fifteen minutes before she pushed off? Many hung on until there was no point.

Sometimes faith runs into a brick wall called reality.

Many there fought long and hard for their lives. Jumping was not an act of cowardice, but a exercise of choice of the means of their death.

[Sparky760]

Good Post It is not morbid......it is reality, as sad as that can be. It is what our media should be showing each time they report on the collateral damage.

[habs4ever]

I've been in two life threatening situations before, and one, where I was being crushed by a falling floor of a house, didn't give me anytime to be rational.Most of it is a blur, except for the intense initial pain, and I was fortunate to pass out from the pain or from hyperventalation.It happens so quickly that you react on instinct, and you do panic, trust me.All you do is hope that someone comes to rescue you.

[cowgirlcutie]

The thought of what those poor people must have felt, is as strong for me today as it was on 09/11. I will NEVER, NEVER forget.

[DC Ripper]

bttt

[Thumper1960]

I am not trying to be morbid

But you are.I see no purpose in this post other than morbidity.

Au contrair. There are no pictures of the aftermath, the sequence of events and the victims. Just pictures of what once was a pair of mighty towers and the views from those once majestic structures. It's a long way down, you'll agree. Seeing is more than believing; it is understanding.

Up to this point, most of us saw the twin towers from a pedestrian point of view. Not from the occupants, and victims, vantage. What horror must have been present to make those who jumped the towers do so.

It is another way of seeing what must never be forgotten.

[IronJack]

Good pictures. Gives a sense of the magnitude of those structures, and a hint at what we lost that day. Much, much more than just buildings ...

[StormEye]

Thank you for posting those pictures. I've never seen the view from the top of the WTC. I was hoping to visit the WTC someday. Do you any pictures of the interiors of the buildings, the underground mall etc?
I think it is a good thing for people to be reminded of the enormity of the loss to America on 9/11. It will help steel our resolve to kill the bastards that perpetrated the 9/11 atrocity.
Also, I think you could have chosen a better title for your post.

Notice:
To all wimpy liberals and the so-so compassionate "we must understand them" cowards:
This was an ATROCITY!, not a "tragedy."

[Interesting Times]

How about this every time CNNABCNBCCBS show pictures of civilian casualties in Afgan hospitals they are also required to show video of the planes hitting the buildings and people leaping to their deaths.

The proper nomenclature is 'ABCNNBCBS'...

[SerpentDove]

I have created a montage of a small enough size for the web, but which (I think) is ENORMOUS in its impact of what happened on 9/11. It is basically a collage of the photos of others, but IMHO VERY impactful.

My problem is, I don't have a server to put it on; I don't have web space and Photopoint.com won't respond for some reason.

I would like to email this image to anyone who would like to see it and (hopefully) post it. I think it would be a good service, as this image is emailable in size and gets the point across very dramatically.

Anybody want to see it? I will be glad to email it to you.

THANKS!

SD

[fone]

Methinks "Grig" is either a Vulcan or a Stepford poster.
He ain't worth it darlin.

YOU always have been the cat's pajamas.

[PresbyRev]

post 148 --- you are a perverse little pri*k for questioning the decision by doomed folks to jump to their death rather than burn in an inferno. I really would be curious to see if you would sit your little a** on the burning, crumbling 103 fl of a WTC and pray for angels to fly in & swoop you away.

[xm177e2]

What a beautiful city

[livius]

Thank you, vannrox, for posting this, and also thanks to diogenesis for posting what I find to be the most awful photo, the one of all of those poor people standing in the window looking out at what they would see last. Thank you, and NEVER FORGET!

[jwfiv]

Yes, way too scary to think of what the last moments of someone's life might have been like that terrible day. Beyond me. Don't wanna know.

[DouglasKC]

I for one appreciate this post. I've never been to New York. About the only thing I really knew about the World Trade Center before 9/11 was that they were tall, in New York, and Homer Simpson had been there. After 9/11 all I saw was the destruction.

These pictures make it more real. It was a real, beautiful place where real people worked and visited. It had lovely views and was a jewel.

Thank you for posting these.