Posted on 09/08/2002 7:16:48 AM PDT by aculeus
ACCORDING to the New York Medical Examiner's Office, no one jumped from the hellish towers on that awful September day in Lower Manhattan. This despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Evidence like grotesque photos and video shots of the trapped victims jumping from the smoke-billowing, flame-ravished upper storeys of the 1,400ft buildings. Like the testimony of horrified spectators. Like the mangled bodies which spattered the large plaza between South and North Towers. Like the bodies which were found on the roof of the 22-storey Marriott Hotel, and the bodies which crashed through the VIP driveway awning on Tower 1's west side. Like the fact that at least one of the jumpers killed rescue personnel and/ or bystanders. Like the fact that an investigation by USA Today and ABC News revealed that more than 200 people jumped to their certain death.
But there are compelling reasons for the Medical Examiner's reluctance to classify the victims as "jumpers". "Jumper" is a term used to classify someone who deliberately and knowing plunges off a building to certain death. That's suicide. The 200 or so individuals who made the horrendous decision to jump on the morning of September 11 were forced to do so by fire, the smoke, the heat, the inexorable inevitability of death. In effect they did not jump. They were pushed. Homicide.
Suicide carries a taboo; the bereaved were entitled to protection from distressing images of their loved ones.
There was also a political consideration. In steeling America for the counter-terrorism war against Al Qa'ida, the victim numbers counted. There were 2,823 early and cruel deaths, 1,300 orphans and countless suicides arising from post-traumatic stress.
Many images haunted spectators and survivors. Images like the dust-lady (Marcy Border) staggering away, that of fireman Mike Kehoe rushing up the stairwell, but the image that has etched itself into the Western mind is of the people trapped above or near the impact points on the two towers. Of those working above the 84th floor on the South Tower, only 16 survived. (They had evacuated in the 16 minutes between the two air-strikes.) Of those on or above floor 91 on North Tower (impact 94th to 98th floors), no one survived. It was these people trapped in the upper reaches of the towering infernos who were left with the pitiful choice between the devilish flames and the sky.
The bereaved are individuals, not a category. They all react differently. One 12-year-old who lost her dad still watches only the Food Channel because it's the only channel guaranteed not to show images from September 11.
But others like Jean Coleman, who lost two sons, employees of Cantor Fitzgerald on the 104th floor have scoured all the photos, amateur video clips and TV footage to try to identify their relatives and figure out their states of mind.
The picture that has emerged from last phone calls, photographic evidence, emails and the 16 South Tower evacuees is truly terrifying, but also inspiring. There was panic, but most strove to survive, helped others, and many stoically accepted their fate and phoned love-messages to their loved ones. Urgent phone calls were made to the lobby fire control. The advice was to stay put. Some tried to evacuate via stairwells. All were driven back by the flames and smoke.
Others tried to make their way up to the roof, hoping for a helicopter rescue, but the roof exit doors were shut and a helicopter rescue was ruled out by emergency services.
Others phoned to tell relatives they were OK or to find out what had happened. Steve Tomsett on the 106th floor used his computer to ask his family, who were watching TV, for "updates". Shortly after, as the smoke and intense heat reached his floor, he emailed simply, "I'm scared."
Others trapped on the North Tower used their computers to break the windows, gasping for air and leaning out, looking for respite and rescue. Some peeled off their tops and waved them despairingly. Others made the awful decision and jumped.
They jumped singly, in pairs, in groups. Their bodies hurtling down at 140mph. From below they looked at first like debris. Then onlookers realised that they were humans. Some of them retched.
Those trapped in the South Tower were caught between a primal urge to flee and official advice that their building was "secure". But when some, like Andrecia Douglin-Traill on the 92nd floor, saw the North Tower jumpers, they decided to run. She was saved.
Indeed, many of the successful evacuees from the top floors of the South Tower testified later that it was the ghoulish sight of the jumpers which convinced them to flee.
For Jean Coleman it was important to track down her sons she found them in a photo which appeared in the New York Times. The two boys, Scott and Keith, were hanging out of adjacent windows. She felt the photo showed they were "relatively" serene. You see what you want to see. And you get closure.
Most people in America never wanted to see the pictures of the trapped people and non-jumpers. The images burned a passionate resentment into the soul.
Well stated, and I couldn't agree more!
I too have dreams of future useless events, like looking out a window and seeing a leaf float by. I'd always hoped as I aged this would mature into something more useful, but it doesn't appear to be moving that direction!
1) Seeking oxygen at all costs, and
2)Moving away instantly and forcefully from intense heat that burns your flesh.
You and I my dearest friends would reflexively also use superhuman strength to break through inches thick plate glass windows to get oxygen and irrestitably move away from 1400 degree Fahrenheit, steel melting jet fuel inferno.
These dear souls, now in heaven, were brutally murdered in a carefully crafted, well planned event that defines the word "holocaust."
The first one was like a picture drawn with words..I felt like I was there ...here is a link if you are interested
Yes but if there ever was an arthur anderson life insurance company, you can bet they would have classified the jumpers as suicides as an excuse not to pay.
Then the jumpers are heroes. How moving that something good can come out of something so horrible.
"It took three or four to realize: They were people," says James Logozzo, who had gathered with co-workers in a Morgan Stanley boardroom on the 72nd floor of the south tower, just 120 feet away from the north tower. "Then this one woman fell."
She fell closer to the south tower, he recalls. Logozzo saw her face. She had dark hair and olive skin, a white blouse and black skirt. She fell with her back to the ground, flat, staring up.
"The look on her face was shock. She wasn't screaming. It was slow motion. When she hit, there was nothing left," Logozzo says.
Full Story at USA Today.
i don't see any pomposity. He showed outrage at the terrorists, compassion for the victims and their families. And, if anything, he demonstrated that in his ruling the medical examiner spared many families uneeded added grief.
In spite of the efforts of the copters, many gave up and jumped off the roof to their deaths. One of the jumpers was my boss' best friend. His wife said later that he had a great fear of fire and took the jump. One never knows what you might do if flames are closing in on you.
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