Mystery surrounds those who jumped (From the Towers)

http://www.iht.com/articles/538337.html ^ | Saturday, September 11, 2004 | Kevin Flynn and Jim Dwyer

[Maria S]

NEW YORK Three years later, they remain open questions, and many people wonder if firm answers would lead to more pain or less, to practical lessons for society or to simply a spectacle for the morbidly curious. . How many people jumped from the upper floors of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11? . Why did so many more people jump from the north tower than the south? . What floors did they come from? . Who were they? . The attack on the World Trade Center was one of the most observed catastrophes in history, and those who fell or dropped from the towers were, briefly, its most public victims. They emerged one or two at a time from a blanket of smoke and fire that rendered mass death virtually invisible. Nearly all the others killed that day - whether high in the towers, on board the hijacked airplanes or deep inside the Pentagon - were beyond the sight of survivors and witnesses. Those who came through the windows of the towers provided the starkest, most harrowing evidence of the desperate conditions inside.

[weegee]

Yelling fire in a crowded movie theater is not free speech. Neither is inciting a crowd to violence; the KKK is restrained in their speech from advocating murder.

Kind of hard to celebrate the act of terrorism committed on 9-11-2001 without encouraging fellow travellers to murder.

[jocon307]

May they rest in peace. Good post Maria, it reminds us of the real horror of that day. We will never forget, their deaths will not be in vain.

[Jenya]

Does anyone have those pictures of the people jumping? Please post them if you do. Thanks.

I have a picture on my hard drive. I don't know how to post it here. I can e:mail you the photo if you'd like. FReepmail me.

[World'sGoneInsane]

Michael Moore is evil.

You are much too kind. He is a gutless, greasy, greedy, effeminate, jackass, that thinks he's cool because he wears a baseball cap and has achieved fame. There, I feel much better now.

[Physicist]

Those who came through the windows of the towers provided the starkest, most harrowing evidence of the desperate conditions inside.

This is the photo that makes it come home to me. (Look carefully at the bottom photo to find the victim.)

[Gucho]

"Michael Moore is evil. He provides aid and comfort to America's enemies. He is as vile as Axis Sally and Lord Haw Haw were in WWII."

Moore is a leech. He will take the most controversal issues and twist the story to suck every drop of emotion out of a person into his pocketbook.

[wtc911]

Eyewitness accounts related to me indicate that people either jumped rather than burn, were pushed in the crush for air or stepped out into space not knowing or being able to see in the thick smoke. One of these accounts was related to me via cell phone in real time.

As for why more from 1WTC...it was hit first and fell second so it burned longer, there were more people there to begin with, 2WTC had unblocked stairways down which people fled...1WTC did not. (that is how they were known pre-9.11, not north or south, 1 and 2.

[Names Ash Housewares]

I think perhaps, that some may have decided that they would decide when and how to die. To take some power back.
I dont know. It is indeed the most horrible thing to watch. I choose to think of it as a way that they took control as best they could. And I fill with fury once again that we make sure that no one will every have to make that kind of choice again.

[ErnBatavia]

...I just know I won't forget the atrocity visited on these innocents.

I was thinking this morning (as I hoisted the flag) about that...and about how in three short years the demoncrats have become so covetous of the presidency that they've hit new lows.

That party, in entirety, should hang it's head....but that's just wishful thinking on my part; I know better. McCauliffe is already soothing them with the Rove Conspiracy thing.

[Smartaleck]

What does it matter and why would anyone with any respect for such a tragedy pose such a question?

What's next, who screamed and why?
Did the woman try to maintain a modicom of mosdesty and hold their skirts down while plunging to their certain death?

This is asinine IMHO.

[LS]

"Images . . . are suppressed these days."

That isn't entirely true. HBO made a DVD called "9/11: In Memorium." I show it to every class, every September. It captures, from many angles the plane crashes and has both video and stills fo the falling bodies. The only thing it does not have is the famous close up of the people trapped just above the gash.

Get this video. Guiliani is the main narrator. It is excellent.

[tob2]

I get sick to my stomach again just thinking about it. It's probably a blessing we don't know what was going on as it's too horrific to comprehend.

[PLMerite]

I remember reading somewhere that one of the jumpers - a woman - survived the impact, although she was mortally injured. When an EMT got to her all she would say was "I'm not dead. I'm not dead."

Don't know the details of how it ended. Don't know for sure if it's even true.

[ErnBatavia]

Even images of the bodies falling are suppressed these days.

Yes indeed...that's why Diogenesis here is such a treasure with her (her/him?) archives.

[wtc911]

Every time (of the hundreds) I took the elevator in One or Two I thought "what if", especially after being rocked by the '93 bomb. I never felt that way in the ESB or any of the dozens of other Sky Scrapers I spent time in. The Trade Center always felt plastic.

[Bobby777]

[LS]

Well, you haven't looked very hard. The French filmmakers released "9/11," which is their personal saga that day, including the only footage inside the tower and the only video of the plane hitting WTC 1. HBO did a special, now on DVD, called "9/11: In Memoriam." It has many, multiple shots of the planes hitting the towers; multiple shots of the buildings collapsing; and both video and stills of the jumpers.

[Bobby777]

they're in Google images index

[tob2]

What a terrible choice to have to make.

[Quix]

. . . my double post from the thread about the following article.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/979766/posts

---

GREAT ARTICLE, Mr Junod.


THANKS enormously. It has moved me more than any other 911 message or image.


I was sitting in Taipei in my apartment watching CNN and FREEPING on FreeRepublic.com when it started happening. I watched it all live as long as I could stay awake [Where I was teaching English as a self-supporting missionary; 55 years old then, PhD clinical psych].


PERSONALLY, I believe that ALL the photos of ALL the jumpers need to be collected into a viewable collection--probably on the net. Those not wanting to view them, needn't.


I think it would be a grand project for some university or college class--perhaps of photo journalists or detectives or some such--historians.


COLLECT ALL THE PHOTOS AND ALL THE AVAILABLE INFO ABOUT THE INDIVIDUALS.


It probably doesn't matter enormously whether people jumped as a last dying flame of despair or as a last flare of freedom and choice. I suspect more often, it was the latter.


Flying free for 10 seconds vs dying excruciatingly from burning or gasping for unbreathable breath--I can understand that.


Regardless, the phenomenon is a VERY HUMAN ONE. It is a blazing, brazen testimony of HUMANNESS.


And, in a sense, it is a blazing, brazen, bold . . . beautiful . . . leap into eternity


rather than a passively futile whimper into the ashes piling up so inexorably.


If anything, it seems to me, their courageous flights into eternity need to be celebrated, broadcast, held up


as beacons of personhood . . .


beacons of seized CHOICE in the face of satanic theft of choice . . .


beacons of audaciously firm grips on their selected mode of Graduation from one sphere to another . . .


beacons of soaring, regardless of gravity, in an eternal arc into the arms of God.


It seems hideous, to me, to try and stifle such courage. It seems a travesty, to me, to hide such away as though it's less than exalted glory.


Yes. I understand the horror--the supreme horror. I understand the pain of loved ones--as well as one can, not part of it--though we are all part of it.


But what right does anyone have to squelch such outrageous acts of terminal, blazing LIFE?


What right does anyone have to squelch such outrageous acts of very personal, very individual, terminal, blazing acts of FREEDOM in the face of unspeakable terror, horror?


They flew the flags of their lives as best they could with the options left. Let us that remain give wind to their sails with soberness, with respect--but also with our own meager boldness in the face of their skies full of it. Let us honor them with a vivid publication of the whole tableau.


How can we do less in behalf of such courage?
How can we do less in behalf of such furious flames of life?
How can we do less in behalf of such exaltant moments of fanatical freedom?


How can we do less than to display, to look and to applaud?


. . .


. . .


I have compassion for the relatives. But the relatives were not presented with the horrid options. The jumpers were.


And, I, for one, believe that their AWE-FUL choice well deserves a fitting, sobered, loving celebration.


THANKS Tom, Thanks tons, for touching me so deeply with your article [tears].


God's best to you and your family,