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For those who jumped, the fall lasted 10 seconds. They struck the ground at just less than 150 miles per hour — not fast enough to cause unconsciousness while falling, but fast enough to ensure instant death on impact. People jumped from all four sides of the north tower. They jumped alone, in pairs and in groups.

I've always wondered about that... Are you really unconscious when you land?? I did a tandem jump with 60 seconds of free fall, and the instructor estimated we were going about 100 miles an hour. I don't know, all I felt was sheer terror in every cell.

Yet I've read that usually the poisonous fumes in the smoke will kill someone quite quickly. I don't know what I would do, stay and die, or jump and die. My only hope would be that I had enough time to make my peace before death.

And I do hope that the 'martyrs' truly got what they deserved in their afterlife.

I'm glad USA Today published this story. If I had a relative who had jumped, it would be an odd sort of comfort to me to know that nobody survived from those floors, and that there was nothing anybody could have done at that point. If any of their relatives torture themselves with the idea that they maybe could have gotten out if they hadn't jumped, this story might help. There was no way they could have survived, and if I had been on one of those floors, I would likely have jumped, too, rather than burned or suffocated.

Are you really unconscious when you land?

No, although some were probably in shock from the fall. They would be numb, but not unconcious. Most likely, not one of them felt a thing at impact, as their bodies disintegrated in a small fraction of a second.