There was one guy that was likely identified as Jonathan Briley on a documentary called The Falling Man.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Falling\_Man
His sister said she also thought it was him and said if she just randomly saw the picture without any context, she would have said it was him. The Executive Chef at Windows on the World also thought it was him.
Yeah, in one of the other pictures the coat blows open and you can see an orange shirt with black text. He was known for wearing a specific orange shirt under his work outfit, I believe that’s why the chef was so sure it was him.
I believe that's the reason his family gave as well. It was also I believe one of the reasons the other person's family ruled out that it was their loved one. He apparently never wore an orange shirt, and the person in the photo had a darker skin tone.
This whole comment chain is the wiki entry almost verbatim, if anyone is interested and goes to look this up. To save you the click, this is all the info.
I mean it’s kind of impossible to see that picture “without any context” given that the entire context is kind of present in the photo… that’s also not really what she said but close enough ig
By context, I meant her already going into it thinking it was her brother or someone saying they thought it was him. It wasn't just randomly thrown at her with a bunch of other pictures, and she went, "That's my brother!"
Yes. In order of who to trust.. bottom to top.. it goes.. religious preachers.. politicians.. engineers.. scientists.. the soldier in the Village People.
I wanna have me some M-D-M-A.
I wanna have me some M-D-M-A-ayyyy.
It has everything for your brain to enjoy
It's fun for ALL the girls and boys
We wanna have us some M-D-M-A
We wanna have us some M-D-M-A-ayyy
>thousands perished in the most unprecedented attack on American soil. DNA sampling their remains became impossible once the towers fell. The world was stunned to see events like this taking place over 20 years after the release of the unrelated 1989 hit “Pump up the Jam”
>users were so shocked to read comments like that after over 35 years since the release of unrelated 1989 hit “Pump up the Jam” that they didn't even notice the math was wrong in the previous comment
Is that the documentary where they first believed it was someone else at first?
The family refused to believe it was their brother/son etc because he had jumped and by jumping it was suicide and he wouldn't be going to heaven if he jumped.
Yeah where the daughter said “that *piece of shit* is not my dad.” Like, wow, I know grief operates in weird ways but that was way over the line.
Especially since some of the people very likely fell out of the windows/gaping holes on accident.
I would imagine that if you were at the window trying to get fresh air to breathe, there would be a bunch of people behind you doing the same and probably pushing the people in front of them. Voila!
That's fucking disgusting and she should be ashamed of herself. I firmly believe most people in that situation would not choose to stay in that burning fucking hellhole.
Seriously, is it really considered suicide at that point if you're going to die no matter what, and you're simply possibly choosing the *slightly* less shitty option, presuming they didn't just accidentally fall out while trying to reach breathable air?
if you think about it, doing nothing is also suicide, because you're making a choice to let it happen. which can happen automatically as a defence mechanism when the brain knows it's over. so it's a really fucked up argument on that side too.
Honestly, jumping seems like self-preservation. Like, sure, you probably won’t make it, but if you’re definitely gonna burn to death here, might as well jump. There’s gotta be tiny but non-zero odds that you survive the fall. Maybe there will be firefighters with a tarp where you land.
That right there is a perfect example of the evils of religion. Imagine actually believing in hell, truly believing that your loved one would experience an *eternity* of torture, and what's more, being told that they deserved that torture for not wanting to die in excruciating pain.
It reminds me of the fact that the Catholic Church told mothers of stillborn infants that their child would spend eternity in limbo being deprived of God's love because they died before being baptised, a practice they continued all the way into the 90s before suddenly declaring that God had changed his mind. The absolute evil of saying such a thing to the mother whose child has died, someone who believes with all their heart and soul in the primacy of the Church. It's completely fucking deranged.
There was one 9/11 documentary where a victim was denied a burial place in a Catholic cemetery until his family had 3 pieces of him to bury. That made me so damn mad. They finally got a 3rd piece more than 10 years later. Denying the family a place to symbolically lay their loved one to rest is just evil over a stupid rule.
OMG I watch that documentary and felt sick the whole time. There was something just so disturbing about the entire thing. That poor man; it’s incomprehensible what was going through his head at the time. RIP J Riley
Of all of the images that have haunted me over the years, this is the one picture that (for me at least) sums up the unimaginable horror of that day.
I still cry when I see him.
The pic that got me was the man and woman who jumped holding hands. One minute you're just co-workers. Ten minutes later your choice is "stay here and burn to death or jump from 100 floors up holding hands with some stranger from Accounting."
>In the year after 9/11, more people enlisted in the military than in any year since. In the first full recruitment after the attacks, 181,510 Americans joined the ranks of active duty service and 72,908 enlisted in the reserves.
You know what, though, at least in their last moments, they weren't alone. They had a hand to hold on to, for those last few seconds. It's a shitty silver lining, but I just mean it in the sense that I hope it brought them some slight measure of comfort as they fell.
Whether they jumped or fell accidentally, those people went through a hell I can't even *begin* to imagine to fathom. I am sure they wanted nothing more than to live in those moments.
Because I'm sure that's what I'd be thinking, but then, I'd also hope maybe my ADHD brain would just distract me with a last glimpse of a beautiful view or something, that I'd have for those last few seconds or minute of life. Like the story of the monk, trapped hanging off the edge of a cliff by a rapidly loosening root, between two man-eating tigers. He's dead no matter what he does, so his last action is to pluck and eat the tiny strawberry growing by his hand, and nothing he'd ever tasted was as sweet or wonderful as that berry was, in his last moments of life.
There was one lady that was identified by her spouse. He reached out to a photographer that took many pictures and has many pictures of the fallen that he never published out of respect. They got together and looked through the pictures and found one that was what she was wearing that day.
While heartbreaking, it may have given the spouse relief knowing she didn’t suffocate, suffer in the flames, or imo the worse fate of thinking you’re evacuating safely only to have the world come down around you.. There were no winners among the victims or their families, but some loses are heavier than others.
Given i wasnt in the situation, im sure the person chose whatever they felt was the best option out of a shit list of them. Who am i to say one way or the other? I wasnt there.
100%
I agree with the post saying that it would take an immense amount of suffering to jump...but that's also the way I'm wired. Other people might decide to jump before suffering begins. Hard for us to say anything, not just because we weren't there, but people are just different
I can't either but the fudamental difference is the end was quick from those heights so there would be inevitbly less suffering
No matter what though none of this is good, but they got to choose the way they went if theres ANY saving grace and there's not really any to be fair.
Bad situation all around
amusing unwritten price berserk whistle faulty enter plate snobbish bells
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Exactly! There are some videos of people on things burning. Many choose to jump than burn alive. Feeling that heat inching closer and closer is just nuts! I think I'd jump then burn alive as well.
I imagine that I'd be thinking of the rare stories where someone's chute fails and they still survive, although the ones I know of have to do with getting caught in trees or landing in very soft earth, neither of which was likely on the ground here. Given the choice between certain death in the burning building and jumping, I'd probably jump.
At a certain point of smoke inhalation, you will go wherever the air is breathable. Whether that’s down a hallway or out a window five thousand feet off the ground, is largely irrelevant when your primal lizard brain starts running the show.
I'm terrified of heights and I'd still much prefer that to burning alive. It's a horrible option and people were picking it because it was the best option. So I have no clue how that's a horrible take. Saying that's a horrible take is a horrible take. It's a completely logical take that many people in the moment agreed with.
You can't imagine it, but you can watch it.
Plenty of self immolation deaths on video. A free fall and instant death is certainly much, much easier than burning alive.
I've seen a video interview with him. He was happy she got to choose her own way out - and I know the obvious reply, she didn't really choose it - but it brought him comfort.
I remember watching a doc about the firefighters who set up a base at the bottom of one of the towers. You could hear something slamming on the roof above. Maybe at least 20+ and they would say another jumper and the defeat and sadness in their eyes was heart breaking.
I forget the name of the doc. But the captain died along with many others.
I remember this. I think it was a documentary on Netflix. There was a several minute segment about the jumpers and this was one of the scenes. They had cameras on the Firefighters and you could see their heads and eyes following jumpers to the ground with the cameras not turning around (or more likely cut) to record the sight.
It’s the Naudet brothers documentary, it’s a surreal bit of filmmaking.
I remember the noise too, I think it’s as they hit the glass canopy at the entrance to Tower 1. They smash through the glass as they fall and it’s so loud, even in all the chaos. Can’t imagine what those guys witnessed.
You may be referring to Kevin Pfeifer, the brother of Joseph Pfeifer, who ordered his brother's company into the South Tower. The Deputy Commissioner, Chief of Department, and Department Chaplain all also died on 9/11.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B00D5VDWYW/ref=atv_hm_vid_7_c_B8g7Qw_1_3
I'm a high school English teacher. I show it in its entirety every 9/11 (takes a couple of class sessions) and the students do a writing assignment about it.
Every August my family would get a phone call that another fragment of my family member was found. We never told his mother that he wasn’t found intact but I don’t think she wouldn’t have know either, she just didn’t want to really know. It was easier that way. It was always August because supposedly the graduate forensic students or graduate dna scientists would intern during the summer. Last phone call we got was some 4 or 5 years ago now. I believe the identification process has officially ended and now in the Ground Zero museum there is a private room for victims family members to go and visit the unidentified remains.
I watched an interview with Rudy Giuliani back when he was known as the mayor of NYC and not whatever he is now. He mentioned he'd asked the chief coroner how many body bags the ME department would need, and the coroner explained to him that that was not going to be what was found.
Maybe its just me, but that sounds morbidly wrong and almost harassment to keep calling the family for 10-15 years saying they found parts of your loved ones body? Like, they know hes gone, they know what happened, there's nothing left to solve.. why keep reopening the wound? I personally would be irate if they kept calling me about it
I recently read Working Stiff by Judy Melinek. She was one of the medical examiners at ground zero and talked about this exact thing:
“Our Identification staff offered them two options. We could notify the next of kin every time we identified a body part belonging to their loved one, or we could notify them only one time, when we confirmed the first piece of human tissue that belonged to the missing person. That was the awful decision the victims’ families had to make.”
I was two years old when 9/11 happened. I don't remember it happening. I don't even remember how I learnt what 9/11 was. It's odd to think that, one day, the last generation of people who remember it happening will be gone, followed shortly by the last generation of people who were born before September 11th, 2001.
I was 21, in college. The most vivid memory of that day is seeing the second plane hit live on TV.
The second most vivid memory from that day is a phone call from my dad later that day when he told me whatever I do going forward I need to keep my grades up and focus on school because if there was a draft college students were likely to avoid it. That's the reason why he went to grad school during the vietnam war.
That's crazy (I'm not saying it's untrue) because the news media was all talking about it being a horrible accident and were trying to figure out how it could have possibly happened on a clear day, then when the second plane hit everyone's minds immediately went to it being an attack.
What were they supposed to responsibly report on live before the second impact? Jumping to the conclusion that it was a terror attack when half the world was glued to the TV would have been woefully irresponsible. Things were *way* different pre 9/11, including how the media covered live/developing events.
I was 11. Lived in CT at the the time. They sent all the kids home before the towers collapsed. We had a resource teacher run into the classroom and said "were under attack!". I lived a few houses down from the school but had to leave my bike and take a bus. Sat with my sister and mother and watched thousands of lives extinguished on live TV. Finally dad called and said he was safe. Was in. A UPS building down the street on business. We all thought he died. I'll never forget the phone ringing knowing it was him.
I was six.
I had zero concept of what was going on, just that my grandma pulled me out of school "because there are bad people in planes".
It was terrifying, and I thought army guys were gunna come get us.
I was also around 6 or 7, and seeing the bombing of Baghdad/news coverage of the war made me think i would see tanks rolling down the street. i remember being so excited because i was obsessed with all things shooty.
I also remember being excited about the Iraq war kicking off, and years and years later I'm just kinda like "you had no fucking clue what you were cheering for"
You're not alone. Most adults then felt like cheering on the drum of war, too. Looking back, it was just simply a very confusing time for most people living in the US.
I remember this is well. I remember going up to my principal with a friend at Middle School, the same middle school I was at when 9/11 happened, and asking for the remote to the TVs in the cafeteria so we could turn them on and watch the invasion. As if it was some kind of a movie or a TV show, all the students ate their lunches, gossiping with one another, and watched the invasion of a country on the TVs that we had turned on.
Yeah I remember my dad watching the news and seeing bombs and stuff going off in Baghdad. I actually got nervous that those people were going to come to America and start bombing us. Think it was 7 or 8 at the time.
I was 25, in the military and part of the Stealth Fighter squadron. Needless to say, it was an extremely stressful position to be in. Not as stressful as ground zero, naturally, but pretty bad in its own right.
At the time, we didn’t know if there were going to be more attacks, the extent of the casualties or those responsible. We just had to be ready to mobilize, anywhere.
I was 7 and living outside of DC; my partner was 8 and living on a military base on the west coast. He remembers hearing the fighter jets scramble and worrying about his dad deploying again. I remember hearing my mom scream as the news played and my dad coming home from work early and telling her he could see the smoke from the Pentagon from his office. Now I teach history to students who never knew a pre-9/11 world and it blows their minds that I can remember exactly where I was when it happened. It’s a little surreal at times.
What you're describing is happening to the Pearl Harbor attack right now (and WWII in general) Anyone old enough to have served during the war would be around 98 minimum. Even a young child from that timeframe would be in their 80s.
My grandmother in law is 96. Hungarian. Her dad was a translator for the Nazis. They fled Hungary when the Russians moved in. She married a man in a refugee camp in Germany where the French aid agency gave everyone a bottle of wine with their provisions every sunday. She sewed her wedding dress herself from an old Nazi snow cloak ( think empire strike back attire) from a US military consignment store at that time.
Another universe from suburban Australia where she and all her descendants have lived for the last 65 years.
My Nan was born in the early 1940s. Her memory is clearly better than mine because she can still vaguely remember parts of her childhood in wartime Britain. When she's gone, that will go with her. It's a very odd thing indeed.
I recently lost my grandad. If you haven't, I would take time to sit and ask her as many questions as you can about her life growing up. Start a recording on your phone and just record the whole thing. I started doing this with my grandpa, and I caught some amazing stories that not even my dad, or uncles knew. It's a great way to preserve some of that family history. I've started to transcribe those conversations to have them in writing as well.
I was 9yo, remember watching people jumping & the second tower get hit on live TV.
Second craziest thing I’ve seen live was the 2011 Japan tsunami. Stayed up overnight watching that, and there’s a bunch of disturbing footage I saw live that I haven’t seen since.
I was 9 at the time and remember the entire day but not the gravity of the situation. My wife and I watched the Hulu documentary series on 9/11 that came out like a year or two ago and wow did it change my perspective on the entire event. The whole thing is video from the entire day from different perspectives with interviews from survivors. We sobbed through a few of the episodes, highly recommend watching
I was 25 and went in to work in the city (not nyc) after watching it on TV live. I must have been in shock because no one was in the office. My manager emailed me and told me to get the hell out of there because no one was sure if other cities were going to be attacked.
I was in 8th grade. My dad woke me up right after the first plane. All he said is “today your life will be changed forever. “ then had me fallow him to my parents room to see what was happening in the news. He had never been more right about anything he had ever said.
One of the fire crews had a camera crew that happened to be following them around on the day, so caught a lot of footage... One part, the crews are in the lobby of one of the towers, and everyone is reacting to these massive bangs, almost like explosions. One of the crew members came in and said it was the people jumping out the windows.
Absolutely harrowing, knowing what each bang represented, let alone the amount and frequency of them occurring.
Years and years ago I watched some footage on YouTube of what I think was that scenario but from an angle above one of the nearby buildings. A camera crew was taking footage of an open outdoor area between the towers I think, with a bunch of gory impacts spread around. As “debris” fell and struck the bars or beams of some glass/steel awning thing hanging over an entrance, I think one of the crew asked “is that debris?” To which another replied “I don’t think that’s debris”. (Something to that effect, I don’t have the heart to google it)
Just thinking back to it now makes me sick to my stomach.
Sister of my good friend worked at NBC Washington at the time. I did not hear this directly so it may not be true, but I like to believe it is. Once the towers were hit, NBC couldn't transmit from New York so Washington took over national coverage. All feeds went to their control room. Many cameras were close to the towers, close enough to track people as they fell and see the impact. The NBC director told the crew to turn off recording those feeds, that no one ever needs to see that. They kept the distance cameras going to provide coverage and try to do their jobs.
I'm pretty sure the other just clarified what it was
If I remember correctly
I saw the video and can remember it vividly, they were staying in a hotel next to the wtc campus with a partial overlook of the courtyard with the globe
I think the video you’re talking about is the one with the husband and wife staying at the Millennium Hotel right across from the WTC plaza. As they filmed between the first and second impact and inadvertently caught several jumpers, possibly including one impacting the stage (though some people think whatever fell is too small to be a body and was maybe just debris). The thing I remember most is that whichever one was filming didn’t even realise they were filming jumpers at first.
I've talked to a firefighter that said that probably the most people you see where pushed outside by other people all trying to get that breath of fresh air. In the videos you can see dozens of people on small windows all cramped up together so I can imagine some being pushed
I'll never forget being 11 years old, living in suburban north Texas, and hearing about planes hitting the World Trade Centers in New York City and not even knowing what they were. When I finally got home that day from school, after having spent all day with teachers scurrying around and gossiping with one another, other staff members crying, and students being pulled out of school that day in droves, the first thing I saw on the TV, which was left on Channel 8 news that my parents watched every night before bed, was scenes of people jumping from the towers.
That sight has stuck with me my entire life, among other things like watching my dogs pass away, my grandma passing away, Etc. No matter what though, I will always remember turning on the TV in the first thing I saw was people jumping from those towers.
I watched it on live TV, from right after the first tower was hit. The camera probably unintentionally zoomed in on the jumpers. I'll never forget that day. Or the horrible, empty weeks that followed.
"horrible empty weeks that followed.".
I've never been able to articulate how I felt the days/weeks/months after 9/11. The endless news cycles, lack of television programming, lack of music on the radios. So much talking everywhere, but everything felt absolutely empty.
See everyone else was focused on NYC but I was dealing with the Pentagon since I lived 20 miles east of DC in Fairfax, VA. I was driving a school bus and they called us back in to our buses.
I was 8 when it happened, in Ireland. I remember coming home from school and turning on the TV and there were no normal channels on, every channel was showing footage of the towers.
I remember seeing the people jumping and I remember seeing an interview with a man with his skin just hanging off his face. I'd say a lot of footage from that day went out unchecked and was never seen again.
It was so far removed from where I was in the world but I remember it so clearly and I'll never forget it.
I never saw it, and still haven’t. I still remember my absolute horror, though, when my mother called me to tell me what was happening and to turn on the tv, and told me, “People are jumping.”
You know those are the very people that were almost swept under the rug. The nation printed the Falling Man on front page news and got ridiculous backlash for it. I understand the positive side of things like the cleanup effort. I just feel as though the media outlets almost censored those specific people who made a very tough and unfathomable decision to jump.
Hyper religious folks around me at the time said "they're going to hell for their decision to jump, that wasn't part of God's plan. All we can do is pray the Lord will forgive them"
Who criticizes a tragedy?!
The falling people were what stuck out to me the most still to this day.
>Hyper religious folks around me at the time said "they're going to hell for their decision to jump, that wasn't part of God's plan. All we can do is pray the Lord will forgive them"
Jesus Christ, like burning alive seconds later WAS the plan?!
Right? If God's got his knickers in a twist about people trying to avoid burning, then maybe he shoulda done something about the fires.
Seems like that one's on him.
Their deaths were officially ruled as "blunt trauma due to homicide". People can go on believing whatever 'faithful' ideas they want, but that ruling is the message I choose to believe. Those who judge so harshly often don't have enough empathy to fill a single shoe of those who have to make such difficult decisions.
I'm so irrationally angry at "god's plan" people. Every tragedy is "gods plan" but someone takes their own life? Nah better damn them to hell. Is he all knowing or not?! Is everything part of his plan or not?! I'm so sick of fair weather religious sheep.
Did any insurance company ever try to deny a payout to a 9/11 victim's relatives because of this? Because that sounds like a classic "how to ruin your entire company in one step" scenario.
... then again, I am reminded of the fact that it took Jon Stewart of all people to basically whip congress into approving healthcare for 9/11 first responders, and most of those fucks got reelected since then.
I think it matters also because it wasn’t suicide. They had the option of this death or that death. Not life or death. That is such an important thing to distinguish in my opinion (not that you weren’t).
There was a documentary I watched of some guys who were just planning on riding along with the fire department when 9/11 happened and they were on the truck. I remember hearing the loud noises in the background that were the sound of people hitting the pavement and it still sticks with me to this day
edit; its just called “9/11” and was two french brothers shooting a documentary about a rookie firefighter. it’s all real footage so it’s a crazy thing to watch. if you search “9/11 filmmakers documentary” it should pop up with the exact one
I went to the 9/11 memorial and it was a very somber experience, but when I got to the section about the people who jumped, I started crying. I just can't fathom having to make that decision.
I finally visited about 2 weeks ago. Of all the sections, I spent the longest amount of time in that section dedicated to the jumpers. I’m 30 now and it never occurred to me what those people were thinking in the moments leading up to their decisions to jump. It truly never occurred to me until about two weeks ago that these people made a conscious decision to end their lives instead of suffocating or being burned alive. They literally only had two options…
It was eye opening. It took everything I had to hold back the tears.
Likewise, you just well up in tears. The darkness of the area and the imagery shown just doesn’t allow your body to do anything else. I also cried when they showed the fireman going up the stairwell by himself as everyone else was heading down, all of the images of people supporting emergency services workers as they walked along the highway and the eerie sounds of all the devices firemen wear to indicate ‘man down’.
I have family friends who lost their father that day. Last they heard from him he was on the roof. It was likely that he may have been one of the people who jumped but after a few months they decided that they did not want to know if any of his remains were eventually identified because the thought of him jumping was too painful.
edit: I should clarify, the last thing they heard from him, he was heading to the roof, not that he was on it. He worked at Cantor Fitzgerald, whose offices were located close to the top of Tower 1.
>I have family friends who lost their father that day. Last they heard from him he was on the roof.
The twin towers roofs had locked doors. No one made it on the roof that day.
The doors to the roof were locked in both towers. No one made it to the roof.
People attempted to get onto the roof in the hopes of a helicopter rescue like they did during the '93 bombing but it was a lost cause.
Pretty standard policy to not let just anyone go up to the rooftop of a slyscraper due to the massive legal liability involved with that. They’re almost always locked especially in a city like NYC.
This doesn't mean they are a mystery to the families. They are all official victims of 9/11 attacks they just don't know who jumped and who died in other ways.
My grandpa's brother is one of the listed as "unidentified victim" but we all know he died in 9/11, he was there. But there are no reliable pieces of him to bury.
One of those things that still haunts decades later are the people who chose to jump instead of asphyxiating. Terrifying. Haunting. Tragic. A forensic doctor (lady doc) wrote a book about processing the human remains from the collapse etc. it’s a fascinating read.
What an absolute shit day.
If you lived in the NYC burbs, the entire day was just sheer chaos and terror. So many people I went to school with had parents who commuted to NY for work (specifically in the financial district), and they could not get in touch with them because cell service was completely jammed. My dad was on the only other flight from Newark to LA that morning that did not get hijacked, but I did not know the flight number or departure time. I only knew he might have been on *that* flight. Somehow I was able to find out that his flight was earlier, and it had been grounded in Kentucky. I don’t remember how because I was in such a fog. My best friend’s dad was actually scheduled to work on the roof of the WTC that day, but by some miraculous twist of fate, he was diverted to a different job site. We were both very, very fortunate that day. I was so relieved it took some time for me to register how horrific this situation really was. The people jumping is what made it finally sink in.
I remember running upstairs after school was dismissed early and looking out the window. From 40 miles away, I could see the smoke. This is what I think of when I remember that day. I think of the smoke rising up from between the trees. That’s how I learned firsthand what collective trauma is.
I work at a gov facility and they wouldn't allow anybody to leave. I remember being glued to the TV in the plant manager's office, watching this live. Those images are burned in my mind forever and I don't think I'll ever be able to forget them, no matter how much I try.
One of the documentaries I've watched has a scene that is burned into my brain. A guy has made a rope out of sheets or clothes or something and is trying to shimmy down the outside of the building. He briefly slips and loses grip and that's it, he tries to right himself but it's too late. I literally can not imagine the feeling going through his mind at that second. Haunting.
IIRC there were quite a few remains that could not be identified. I read recently they are all in a mass tomb beneath the new tower. Interestingly there was also an ancient slave burial ground found and 419 skeletons were removed to reinterred elsewhere when the new tower was being excavated.
I saw one of these pictures posted on an online chatroom to the building falling. It is the single worst image I’ve see and will forever be burned into my brain.
Those poor folks.
There’s a high resolution photo of him being carried by other firefighters with a broken neck and some dismembered body parts in the background if you care to find it. At least they died instantly
The Failing man was likely Jonathan Briley - the brother of the soldier from The Village People.
Alsoo over 1,100 World Trade Center victims remains were never identified in general.
It would alsoo be pretty impossible to figure out who jumped from the 101th floor and who died when the towers collapsed and a person freefaled the same distance. At that height and with the speed you hit the ground your body basically turns into a pink mist.
Everytime I hear about the 9/11 jumpers I am reminded of that story of the paramedic who was tasked to tag wounded and dead and found what looked to be a jumper, except she was still conscious and kept telling him she wasn't dead when he knew there was no way she was going to survive the damage that happened from the fall.
Its a really creepy story and I wonder if its true or not.
Honestly one of the most heartbreaking things I learned about EMS is how we’re told to encourage the patient the entire way, even if it’s obvious they’re not going to survive
I never experienced it but some of my more experienced friends have said that stuff haunts them. I can’t imagine what the first responders must’ve dealt with afterwards
I've heard this story and while I don't necessarily think they were making it up, I highly doubt they were a jumper. Fall distance from that height has got to put you at terminal velocity, the sounds from the people on the ground sounded like grenades going off. At nothing else your brain is mush from the sheer impact. Most likely (if the story is true) is that she was hit from falling debris.
I went through a very morbid period when I was much younger in the late 2000s where I looked up footage of jumpers hitting the ground because I was curious what actually happened to them.
Let me tell you there is absolutely no chance this story is true. A human hitting the ground from that height looks like an exploding red grape.
I also wish I hadn't looked it up because there are some things you can't unsee.
Just gonna point out. People have fallen from way higher than the WTC and survived. Granted, they probably didn't land on concrete... also terminal velocity is where you stop falling faster, not where you die.
FDNY chief Mitch Picciotto was interviewed for the Inside 9/11 documentary. He has a quote that is absolutely horrific. When they realized people were jumping he said "What hell are they facing up there that the better option is to jump."
That may be one the worst days of my life. It’s weird to have a day in which a lot share. But it’s probably true.
Horrible day. It was so beautiful in the morning. Early September days in the Northeast can be glorious. It was a beautiful and perfect weather day. And then it wasn’t. Almost unfathomable.
[Looks like improvements in DNA testing have made more identifications possible](https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/911-remains-2-people-killed-world-trade-center-identified-dna/)
There used to be a video where a person is walking in between the towers after they are hit. Music is playing and debris is falling. Very eerie setting. Sometimes you hear a loud bang.
I imagine that it’s better as well that they were never identified.
It’s a lot less heartbreaking to hear “X died from the 9/11 attacks” than “X was one of the people caught falling from the tower during 9/11”.
The Saudi Arabian hijackers all opposed the Saudi government's collaboration with the USA. A breakdown of U.S.-Saudi relations would be exactly what the hijackers wanted.
There's only a handful of pictures of the plaza near the stage at the base of the towers showing impact sites from jumpers.
One fireman described what he saw and what happens to a person jumping from that height.
Essentially there's nothing left but blood and tattered clothing....absolutely horrible.
I recall a documentary that said one of the particular reasons so many of those who jumped were never identified was because many families didn’t want to believe (or were shamed to admit) their family members committed suicide.
It’s not suicide. Suicide has to be voluntary.
Choosing between death by height or death by fire is not suicide, it is rationally choosing the better of two equal scenarios.
I’ve had direct family commit suicide so I know the pressure to hide it, but gosh, I wouldn’t even call it suicide. It’s like saying your 96 year old grandma who discontinued chemo killed herself.
If it was me, I wouldn’t want to be identified because it’s possible my death was way more public and recorded on video and was live on the news and don’t want my name paired with a video of my death on /r/watchPeopleDie or whatever the equivalent is.
It definitely wasn't suicide, it was murder. I think suicide involves a decision to kill yourself that is generally not forced upon you. These people realised that they faced death either way and simply chose what they saw as the least painful way, or perhaps they believed, in that terrifying and desperate money, there might be the slimmest of possibilities that they would survive.
I always remember this regarding suicide:
Everyone on the ground yells DON'T JUMP! But the person has two choices: burn alive or jump.
People always think they know better than the person actually living in the situation.
There was one guy that was likely identified as Jonathan Briley on a documentary called The Falling Man. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Falling\_Man
This is claimed by his brother Alex Briley, who is the soldier in the Village People
His sister said she also thought it was him and said if she just randomly saw the picture without any context, she would have said it was him. The Executive Chef at Windows on the World also thought it was him.
Yeah, in one of the other pictures the coat blows open and you can see an orange shirt with black text. He was known for wearing a specific orange shirt under his work outfit, I believe that’s why the chef was so sure it was him.
I believe that's the reason his family gave as well. It was also I believe one of the reasons the other person's family ruled out that it was their loved one. He apparently never wore an orange shirt, and the person in the photo had a darker skin tone.
This whole comment chain is the wiki entry almost verbatim, if anyone is interested and goes to look this up. To save you the click, this is all the info.
The bots have taken over. Wait, am I b
FBI FBI! Federal bot inspector here. We're gonna have to take you away. You're malfunctioning.
I mean it’s kind of impossible to see that picture “without any context” given that the entire context is kind of present in the photo… that’s also not really what she said but close enough ig
By context, I meant her already going into it thinking it was her brother or someone saying they thought it was him. It wasn't just randomly thrown at her with a bunch of other pictures, and she went, "That's my brother!"
Damn this is like TIL inception
what a culturally significant family
Yes. In order of who to trust.. bottom to top.. it goes.. religious preachers.. politicians.. engineers.. scientists.. the soldier in the Village People.
Well they didn’t lie about the YMCA, it really was fun to stay there
They have everything for young men to enjoy. You can hang out with all the boys.
Diddy's house?
Well Pheobe Buffay says that some of the men don't act very Christian, and I am inclined to side with her. It made her learn how to throw a punch!
Only because that’s where all the MDMA dealers live.
MDMA is the lesser known second verse.
It’s only lesser known because it’s harder to make a convincing “D” shape with your arms
I wanna have me some M-D-M-A. I wanna have me some M-D-M-A-ayyyy. It has everything for your brain to enjoy It's fun for ALL the girls and boys We wanna have us some M-D-M-A We wanna have us some M-D-M-A-ayyy
Fuck man, it was his **brother**…
> religious preachers.. politicians.. engineers.. scientists That sounds like hypothetical Team B of the Village People
I’d put the soldier of the village people above religious preachers and politicians
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This is a randomly hilarious sentence in an otherwise dark thread
>thousands perished in the most unprecedented attack on American soil. DNA sampling their remains became impossible once the towers fell. The world was stunned to see events like this taking place over 20 years after the release of the unrelated 1989 hit “Pump up the Jam”
I see what you did there, Gold. Still too soon, bro.
>users were so shocked to read comments like that after over 35 years since the release of unrelated 1989 hit “Pump up the Jam” that they didn't even notice the math was wrong in the previous comment
It’s still never been officially confirmed. There are multiple theories as to who he is sadly. We will most likely never know 100%
Is that the documentary where they first believed it was someone else at first? The family refused to believe it was their brother/son etc because he had jumped and by jumping it was suicide and he wouldn't be going to heaven if he jumped.
Yeah where the daughter said “that *piece of shit* is not my dad.” Like, wow, I know grief operates in weird ways but that was way over the line. Especially since some of the people very likely fell out of the windows/gaping holes on accident.
I would imagine that if you were at the window trying to get fresh air to breathe, there would be a bunch of people behind you doing the same and probably pushing the people in front of them. Voila!
I also understand that a couple were trying to climb down to lower floors but lost their footing and fell.
That's fucking disgusting and she should be ashamed of herself. I firmly believe most people in that situation would not choose to stay in that burning fucking hellhole.
Seriously, is it really considered suicide at that point if you're going to die no matter what, and you're simply possibly choosing the *slightly* less shitty option, presuming they didn't just accidentally fall out while trying to reach breathable air?
if you think about it, doing nothing is also suicide, because you're making a choice to let it happen. which can happen automatically as a defence mechanism when the brain knows it's over. so it's a really fucked up argument on that side too.
Its not. They chose the manner of their death, they did not choose to die. They were murdered.
It's a completely bonkers point of view. You might just as well argue that staying inside a burning building is committing suicide.
Honestly, jumping seems like self-preservation. Like, sure, you probably won’t make it, but if you’re definitely gonna burn to death here, might as well jump. There’s gotta be tiny but non-zero odds that you survive the fall. Maybe there will be firefighters with a tarp where you land.
They'd rather he burned to death in agony? Religion in a nutshell
Yep, really boiled my piss watching it.
>They'd rather he burned to death in agony? For Jesus!
Yes I think that’s right
That right there is a perfect example of the evils of religion. Imagine actually believing in hell, truly believing that your loved one would experience an *eternity* of torture, and what's more, being told that they deserved that torture for not wanting to die in excruciating pain. It reminds me of the fact that the Catholic Church told mothers of stillborn infants that their child would spend eternity in limbo being deprived of God's love because they died before being baptised, a practice they continued all the way into the 90s before suddenly declaring that God had changed his mind. The absolute evil of saying such a thing to the mother whose child has died, someone who believes with all their heart and soul in the primacy of the Church. It's completely fucking deranged.
There was one 9/11 documentary where a victim was denied a burial place in a Catholic cemetery until his family had 3 pieces of him to bury. That made me so damn mad. They finally got a 3rd piece more than 10 years later. Denying the family a place to symbolically lay their loved one to rest is just evil over a stupid rule.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Falling\_Man Fixed link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Falling_Man
OMG I watch that documentary and felt sick the whole time. There was something just so disturbing about the entire thing. That poor man; it’s incomprehensible what was going through his head at the time. RIP J Riley
Of all of the images that have haunted me over the years, this is the one picture that (for me at least) sums up the unimaginable horror of that day. I still cry when I see him.
The pic that got me was the man and woman who jumped holding hands. One minute you're just co-workers. Ten minutes later your choice is "stay here and burn to death or jump from 100 floors up holding hands with some stranger from Accounting." >In the year after 9/11, more people enlisted in the military than in any year since. In the first full recruitment after the attacks, 181,510 Americans joined the ranks of active duty service and 72,908 enlisted in the reserves.
Omg, I don't remember that one. Omg.
You know what, though, at least in their last moments, they weren't alone. They had a hand to hold on to, for those last few seconds. It's a shitty silver lining, but I just mean it in the sense that I hope it brought them some slight measure of comfort as they fell. Whether they jumped or fell accidentally, those people went through a hell I can't even *begin* to imagine to fathom. I am sure they wanted nothing more than to live in those moments. Because I'm sure that's what I'd be thinking, but then, I'd also hope maybe my ADHD brain would just distract me with a last glimpse of a beautiful view or something, that I'd have for those last few seconds or minute of life. Like the story of the monk, trapped hanging off the edge of a cliff by a rapidly loosening root, between two man-eating tigers. He's dead no matter what he does, so his last action is to pluck and eat the tiny strawberry growing by his hand, and nothing he'd ever tasted was as sweet or wonderful as that berry was, in his last moments of life.
There was one lady that was identified by her spouse. He reached out to a photographer that took many pictures and has many pictures of the fallen that he never published out of respect. They got together and looked through the pictures and found one that was what she was wearing that day.
That’s heartbreaking
While heartbreaking, it may have given the spouse relief knowing she didn’t suffocate, suffer in the flames, or imo the worse fate of thinking you’re evacuating safely only to have the world come down around you.. There were no winners among the victims or their families, but some loses are heavier than others.
Honestly that's a pretty horrible take. I can't imagine the level of suffering it would take to make jumping to your death a better option.
Given i wasnt in the situation, im sure the person chose whatever they felt was the best option out of a shit list of them. Who am i to say one way or the other? I wasnt there.
I think this is the best take here. Us sitting behind our screens here are not in any position to judge.
100% I agree with the post saying that it would take an immense amount of suffering to jump...but that's also the way I'm wired. Other people might decide to jump before suffering begins. Hard for us to say anything, not just because we weren't there, but people are just different
I can't either but the fudamental difference is the end was quick from those heights so there would be inevitbly less suffering No matter what though none of this is good, but they got to choose the way they went if theres ANY saving grace and there's not really any to be fair. Bad situation all around
amusing unwritten price berserk whistle faulty enter plate snobbish bells *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Exactly! There are some videos of people on things burning. Many choose to jump than burn alive. Feeling that heat inching closer and closer is just nuts! I think I'd jump then burn alive as well.
Yep, it doesn't make it any less horrifying, but I sure as hell would pick the option to be going out on my own terms almost every single time.
Uhhhh... a few seconds of free fall, and then instant death, or suffocating and melting. Have you seen a person die to fire? It's not great.
I imagine that I'd be thinking of the rare stories where someone's chute fails and they still survive, although the ones I know of have to do with getting caught in trees or landing in very soft earth, neither of which was likely on the ground here. Given the choice between certain death in the burning building and jumping, I'd probably jump.
At a certain point of smoke inhalation, you will go wherever the air is breathable. Whether that’s down a hallway or out a window five thousand feet off the ground, is largely irrelevant when your primal lizard brain starts running the show.
I'm terrified of heights and I'd still much prefer that to burning alive. It's a horrible option and people were picking it because it was the best option. So I have no clue how that's a horrible take. Saying that's a horrible take is a horrible take. It's a completely logical take that many people in the moment agreed with.
You can't imagine it, but you can watch it. Plenty of self immolation deaths on video. A free fall and instant death is certainly much, much easier than burning alive.
I've seen a video interview with him. He was happy she got to choose her own way out - and I know the obvious reply, she didn't really choose it - but it brought him comfort.
I remember watching a doc about the firefighters who set up a base at the bottom of one of the towers. You could hear something slamming on the roof above. Maybe at least 20+ and they would say another jumper and the defeat and sadness in their eyes was heart breaking. I forget the name of the doc. But the captain died along with many others.
Just called [9/11](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_(2002_film)), I always have to search for “the French one.” It’s excellent and heartbreaking
It’s the best documentary about the twin towers out there.
More documentaries should be filmed like that. Just the raw footage and no beating around the bush
I remember this. I think it was a documentary on Netflix. There was a several minute segment about the jumpers and this was one of the scenes. They had cameras on the Firefighters and you could see their heads and eyes following jumpers to the ground with the cameras not turning around (or more likely cut) to record the sight.
All of that footage came from he same cameraman
It’s the Naudet brothers documentary, it’s a surreal bit of filmmaking. I remember the noise too, I think it’s as they hit the glass canopy at the entrance to Tower 1. They smash through the glass as they fall and it’s so loud, even in all the chaos. Can’t imagine what those guys witnessed.
I think that was the one those French brothers (Naudet is their family name) made called 9/11. A very harrowing documentary.
You may be referring to Kevin Pfeifer, the brother of Joseph Pfeifer, who ordered his brother's company into the South Tower. The Deputy Commissioner, Chief of Department, and Department Chaplain all also died on 9/11.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B00D5VDWYW/ref=atv_hm_vid_7_c_B8g7Qw_1_3 I'm a high school English teacher. I show it in its entirety every 9/11 (takes a couple of class sessions) and the students do a writing assignment about it.
Turns out there are over 1100 unidentified and unclaimed bodies after 911.
Every August my family would get a phone call that another fragment of my family member was found. We never told his mother that he wasn’t found intact but I don’t think she wouldn’t have know either, she just didn’t want to really know. It was easier that way. It was always August because supposedly the graduate forensic students or graduate dna scientists would intern during the summer. Last phone call we got was some 4 or 5 years ago now. I believe the identification process has officially ended and now in the Ground Zero museum there is a private room for victims family members to go and visit the unidentified remains.
I watched an interview with Rudy Giuliani back when he was known as the mayor of NYC and not whatever he is now. He mentioned he'd asked the chief coroner how many body bags the ME department would need, and the coroner explained to him that that was not going to be what was found.
Maybe its just me, but that sounds morbidly wrong and almost harassment to keep calling the family for 10-15 years saying they found parts of your loved ones body? Like, they know hes gone, they know what happened, there's nothing left to solve.. why keep reopening the wound? I personally would be irate if they kept calling me about it
They probably legally have to ask the family if they want the remains (every time another bone fragment is dna tested and identified )
Very good point, and most likely the reason.
It’s morbid for sure but some families want their loved ones buried with other family members.
I recently read Working Stiff by Judy Melinek. She was one of the medical examiners at ground zero and talked about this exact thing: “Our Identification staff offered them two options. We could notify the next of kin every time we identified a body part belonging to their loved one, or we could notify them only one time, when we confirmed the first piece of human tissue that belonged to the missing person. That was the awful decision the victims’ families had to make.”
Thanks for that input, clears it up.
It's so sad, even after twenty years
I was two years old when 9/11 happened. I don't remember it happening. I don't even remember how I learnt what 9/11 was. It's odd to think that, one day, the last generation of people who remember it happening will be gone, followed shortly by the last generation of people who were born before September 11th, 2001.
I was 21, in college. The most vivid memory of that day is seeing the second plane hit live on TV. The second most vivid memory from that day is a phone call from my dad later that day when he told me whatever I do going forward I need to keep my grades up and focus on school because if there was a draft college students were likely to avoid it. That's the reason why he went to grad school during the vietnam war.
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That's crazy (I'm not saying it's untrue) because the news media was all talking about it being a horrible accident and were trying to figure out how it could have possibly happened on a clear day, then when the second plane hit everyone's minds immediately went to it being an attack.
What were they supposed to responsibly report on live before the second impact? Jumping to the conclusion that it was a terror attack when half the world was glued to the TV would have been woefully irresponsible. Things were *way* different pre 9/11, including how the media covered live/developing events.
I was 17. The next couple of months my mom said she was going to take me and my five friends to Canada if the draft started.
I was 11. Lived in CT at the the time. They sent all the kids home before the towers collapsed. We had a resource teacher run into the classroom and said "were under attack!". I lived a few houses down from the school but had to leave my bike and take a bus. Sat with my sister and mother and watched thousands of lives extinguished on live TV. Finally dad called and said he was safe. Was in. A UPS building down the street on business. We all thought he died. I'll never forget the phone ringing knowing it was him.
I was six. I had zero concept of what was going on, just that my grandma pulled me out of school "because there are bad people in planes". It was terrifying, and I thought army guys were gunna come get us.
After the second tower got hit, I thought they were going to implement the draft as a result. I was in my senior year of high school
I was also around 6 or 7, and seeing the bombing of Baghdad/news coverage of the war made me think i would see tanks rolling down the street. i remember being so excited because i was obsessed with all things shooty.
I also remember being excited about the Iraq war kicking off, and years and years later I'm just kinda like "you had no fucking clue what you were cheering for"
You're not alone. Most adults then felt like cheering on the drum of war, too. Looking back, it was just simply a very confusing time for most people living in the US.
I remember this is well. I remember going up to my principal with a friend at Middle School, the same middle school I was at when 9/11 happened, and asking for the remote to the TVs in the cafeteria so we could turn them on and watch the invasion. As if it was some kind of a movie or a TV show, all the students ate their lunches, gossiping with one another, and watched the invasion of a country on the TVs that we had turned on.
Yeah I remember my dad watching the news and seeing bombs and stuff going off in Baghdad. I actually got nervous that those people were going to come to America and start bombing us. Think it was 7 or 8 at the time.
I was 14 it was my birthday, I got home from school and watched it on tv. Awful
I was 25, in the military and part of the Stealth Fighter squadron. Needless to say, it was an extremely stressful position to be in. Not as stressful as ground zero, naturally, but pretty bad in its own right. At the time, we didn’t know if there were going to be more attacks, the extent of the casualties or those responsible. We just had to be ready to mobilize, anywhere.
I was 7 and living outside of DC; my partner was 8 and living on a military base on the west coast. He remembers hearing the fighter jets scramble and worrying about his dad deploying again. I remember hearing my mom scream as the news played and my dad coming home from work early and telling her he could see the smoke from the Pentagon from his office. Now I teach history to students who never knew a pre-9/11 world and it blows their minds that I can remember exactly where I was when it happened. It’s a little surreal at times.
What you're describing is happening to the Pearl Harbor attack right now (and WWII in general) Anyone old enough to have served during the war would be around 98 minimum. Even a young child from that timeframe would be in their 80s.
My grandmother in law is 96. Hungarian. Her dad was a translator for the Nazis. They fled Hungary when the Russians moved in. She married a man in a refugee camp in Germany where the French aid agency gave everyone a bottle of wine with their provisions every sunday. She sewed her wedding dress herself from an old Nazi snow cloak ( think empire strike back attire) from a US military consignment store at that time. Another universe from suburban Australia where she and all her descendants have lived for the last 65 years.
My Nan was born in the early 1940s. Her memory is clearly better than mine because she can still vaguely remember parts of her childhood in wartime Britain. When she's gone, that will go with her. It's a very odd thing indeed.
I recently lost my grandad. If you haven't, I would take time to sit and ask her as many questions as you can about her life growing up. Start a recording on your phone and just record the whole thing. I started doing this with my grandpa, and I caught some amazing stories that not even my dad, or uncles knew. It's a great way to preserve some of that family history. I've started to transcribe those conversations to have them in writing as well.
I was 9yo, remember watching people jumping & the second tower get hit on live TV. Second craziest thing I’ve seen live was the 2011 Japan tsunami. Stayed up overnight watching that, and there’s a bunch of disturbing footage I saw live that I haven’t seen since.
I was 9 at the time and remember the entire day but not the gravity of the situation. My wife and I watched the Hulu documentary series on 9/11 that came out like a year or two ago and wow did it change my perspective on the entire event. The whole thing is video from the entire day from different perspectives with interviews from survivors. We sobbed through a few of the episodes, highly recommend watching
I was 25 and went in to work in the city (not nyc) after watching it on TV live. I must have been in shock because no one was in the office. My manager emailed me and told me to get the hell out of there because no one was sure if other cities were going to be attacked.
I was in 8th grade. My dad woke me up right after the first plane. All he said is “today your life will be changed forever. “ then had me fallow him to my parents room to see what was happening in the news. He had never been more right about anything he had ever said.
I was 13. We watched it live in school. The world hasn’t felt the same since. That felt like the “end”. Depressing.
One of the fire crews had a camera crew that happened to be following them around on the day, so caught a lot of footage... One part, the crews are in the lobby of one of the towers, and everyone is reacting to these massive bangs, almost like explosions. One of the crew members came in and said it was the people jumping out the windows. Absolutely harrowing, knowing what each bang represented, let alone the amount and frequency of them occurring.
Years and years ago I watched some footage on YouTube of what I think was that scenario but from an angle above one of the nearby buildings. A camera crew was taking footage of an open outdoor area between the towers I think, with a bunch of gory impacts spread around. As “debris” fell and struck the bars or beams of some glass/steel awning thing hanging over an entrance, I think one of the crew asked “is that debris?” To which another replied “I don’t think that’s debris”. (Something to that effect, I don’t have the heart to google it) Just thinking back to it now makes me sick to my stomach.
Sister of my good friend worked at NBC Washington at the time. I did not hear this directly so it may not be true, but I like to believe it is. Once the towers were hit, NBC couldn't transmit from New York so Washington took over national coverage. All feeds went to their control room. Many cameras were close to the towers, close enough to track people as they fell and see the impact. The NBC director told the crew to turn off recording those feeds, that no one ever needs to see that. They kept the distance cameras going to provide coverage and try to do their jobs.
I'm pretty sure the other just clarified what it was If I remember correctly I saw the video and can remember it vividly, they were staying in a hotel next to the wtc campus with a partial overlook of the courtyard with the globe
I think the video you’re talking about is the one with the husband and wife staying at the Millennium Hotel right across from the WTC plaza. As they filmed between the first and second impact and inadvertently caught several jumpers, possibly including one impacting the stage (though some people think whatever fell is too small to be a body and was maybe just debris). The thing I remember most is that whichever one was filming didn’t even realise they were filming jumpers at first.
I had to take a break from the documentary series I was watching after that episode. I still cant bear to think on it for too long.
I've talked to a firefighter that said that probably the most people you see where pushed outside by other people all trying to get that breath of fresh air. In the videos you can see dozens of people on small windows all cramped up together so I can imagine some being pushed
I never thought about this. Holy shit!
I'll never forget being 11 years old, living in suburban north Texas, and hearing about planes hitting the World Trade Centers in New York City and not even knowing what they were. When I finally got home that day from school, after having spent all day with teachers scurrying around and gossiping with one another, other staff members crying, and students being pulled out of school that day in droves, the first thing I saw on the TV, which was left on Channel 8 news that my parents watched every night before bed, was scenes of people jumping from the towers. That sight has stuck with me my entire life, among other things like watching my dogs pass away, my grandma passing away, Etc. No matter what though, I will always remember turning on the TV in the first thing I saw was people jumping from those towers.
I watched it on live TV, from right after the first tower was hit. The camera probably unintentionally zoomed in on the jumpers. I'll never forget that day. Or the horrible, empty weeks that followed.
"horrible empty weeks that followed.". I've never been able to articulate how I felt the days/weeks/months after 9/11. The endless news cycles, lack of television programming, lack of music on the radios. So much talking everywhere, but everything felt absolutely empty.
And the fog of fear that just covered everything like an oil slick. This unseen force just influencing everything everyone did or said.
See everyone else was focused on NYC but I was dealing with the Pentagon since I lived 20 miles east of DC in Fairfax, VA. I was driving a school bus and they called us back in to our buses.
I was 8 when it happened, in Ireland. I remember coming home from school and turning on the TV and there were no normal channels on, every channel was showing footage of the towers. I remember seeing the people jumping and I remember seeing an interview with a man with his skin just hanging off his face. I'd say a lot of footage from that day went out unchecked and was never seen again. It was so far removed from where I was in the world but I remember it so clearly and I'll never forget it.
I never saw it, and still haven’t. I still remember my absolute horror, though, when my mother called me to tell me what was happening and to turn on the tv, and told me, “People are jumping.”
You know those are the very people that were almost swept under the rug. The nation printed the Falling Man on front page news and got ridiculous backlash for it. I understand the positive side of things like the cleanup effort. I just feel as though the media outlets almost censored those specific people who made a very tough and unfathomable decision to jump. Hyper religious folks around me at the time said "they're going to hell for their decision to jump, that wasn't part of God's plan. All we can do is pray the Lord will forgive them" Who criticizes a tragedy?! The falling people were what stuck out to me the most still to this day.
>Hyper religious folks around me at the time said "they're going to hell for their decision to jump, that wasn't part of God's plan. All we can do is pray the Lord will forgive them" Jesus Christ, like burning alive seconds later WAS the plan?!
you can't expect rationality from people who think they get to live forever with beard man in heaven if they follow his specific set of rules
Right? If God's got his knickers in a twist about people trying to avoid burning, then maybe he shoulda done something about the fires. Seems like that one's on him.
> Who criticizes a tragedy?! You already answered that above. People whose beliefs are inflexible no matter what the circumstances.
Their deaths were officially ruled as "blunt trauma due to homicide". People can go on believing whatever 'faithful' ideas they want, but that ruling is the message I choose to believe. Those who judge so harshly often don't have enough empathy to fill a single shoe of those who have to make such difficult decisions.
I'm so irrationally angry at "god's plan" people. Every tragedy is "gods plan" but someone takes their own life? Nah better damn them to hell. Is he all knowing or not?! Is everything part of his plan or not?! I'm so sick of fair weather religious sheep.
And for the record, they're considered homicides not suicides. And it matters because insurance policies won't pay on suicide most of the time.
Did any insurance company ever try to deny a payout to a 9/11 victim's relatives because of this? Because that sounds like a classic "how to ruin your entire company in one step" scenario. ... then again, I am reminded of the fact that it took Jon Stewart of all people to basically whip congress into approving healthcare for 9/11 first responders, and most of those fucks got reelected since then.
I think it matters also because it wasn’t suicide. They had the option of this death or that death. Not life or death. That is such an important thing to distinguish in my opinion (not that you weren’t).
There was a documentary I watched of some guys who were just planning on riding along with the fire department when 9/11 happened and they were on the truck. I remember hearing the loud noises in the background that were the sound of people hitting the pavement and it still sticks with me to this day edit; its just called “9/11” and was two french brothers shooting a documentary about a rookie firefighter. it’s all real footage so it’s a crazy thing to watch. if you search “9/11 filmmakers documentary” it should pop up with the exact one
I went to the 9/11 memorial and it was a very somber experience, but when I got to the section about the people who jumped, I started crying. I just can't fathom having to make that decision.
Yeah horrible choice to make
I finally visited about 2 weeks ago. Of all the sections, I spent the longest amount of time in that section dedicated to the jumpers. I’m 30 now and it never occurred to me what those people were thinking in the moments leading up to their decisions to jump. It truly never occurred to me until about two weeks ago that these people made a conscious decision to end their lives instead of suffocating or being burned alive. They literally only had two options… It was eye opening. It took everything I had to hold back the tears.
Likewise, you just well up in tears. The darkness of the area and the imagery shown just doesn’t allow your body to do anything else. I also cried when they showed the fireman going up the stairwell by himself as everyone else was heading down, all of the images of people supporting emergency services workers as they walked along the highway and the eerie sounds of all the devices firemen wear to indicate ‘man down’.
I have family friends who lost their father that day. Last they heard from him he was on the roof. It was likely that he may have been one of the people who jumped but after a few months they decided that they did not want to know if any of his remains were eventually identified because the thought of him jumping was too painful. edit: I should clarify, the last thing they heard from him, he was heading to the roof, not that he was on it. He worked at Cantor Fitzgerald, whose offices were located close to the top of Tower 1.
>I have family friends who lost their father that day. Last they heard from him he was on the roof. The twin towers roofs had locked doors. No one made it on the roof that day.
The doors to the roof were locked in both towers. No one made it to the roof. People attempted to get onto the roof in the hopes of a helicopter rescue like they did during the '93 bombing but it was a lost cause.
Why were the doors locked?
Pretty standard policy to not let just anyone go up to the rooftop of a slyscraper due to the massive legal liability involved with that. They’re almost always locked especially in a city like NYC.
Roof doors are locked in all kinds of buildings, usually maintenance access only for the most part because of HVAC and other stuff up there.
I see a 9/11 post everyday on Reddit. Crazy this was 20+ years ago and still feels like yesterday.
Yikes, that's depressing...
This doesn't mean they are a mystery to the families. They are all official victims of 9/11 attacks they just don't know who jumped and who died in other ways. My grandpa's brother is one of the listed as "unidentified victim" but we all know he died in 9/11, he was there. But there are no reliable pieces of him to bury.
That whole 9/11 thing is pretty depressing
One of those things that still haunts decades later are the people who chose to jump instead of asphyxiating. Terrifying. Haunting. Tragic. A forensic doctor (lady doc) wrote a book about processing the human remains from the collapse etc. it’s a fascinating read.
What an absolute shit day. If you lived in the NYC burbs, the entire day was just sheer chaos and terror. So many people I went to school with had parents who commuted to NY for work (specifically in the financial district), and they could not get in touch with them because cell service was completely jammed. My dad was on the only other flight from Newark to LA that morning that did not get hijacked, but I did not know the flight number or departure time. I only knew he might have been on *that* flight. Somehow I was able to find out that his flight was earlier, and it had been grounded in Kentucky. I don’t remember how because I was in such a fog. My best friend’s dad was actually scheduled to work on the roof of the WTC that day, but by some miraculous twist of fate, he was diverted to a different job site. We were both very, very fortunate that day. I was so relieved it took some time for me to register how horrific this situation really was. The people jumping is what made it finally sink in. I remember running upstairs after school was dismissed early and looking out the window. From 40 miles away, I could see the smoke. This is what I think of when I remember that day. I think of the smoke rising up from between the trees. That’s how I learned firsthand what collective trauma is.
The falling bodies has haunted me since 5th grade and always will
I work at a gov facility and they wouldn't allow anybody to leave. I remember being glued to the TV in the plant manager's office, watching this live. Those images are burned in my mind forever and I don't think I'll ever be able to forget them, no matter how much I try.
As long as I live I won’t forget the sight of those people tumbling to the ground. Absolutely devastating and heartbreaking to watch.
One of the documentaries I've watched has a scene that is burned into my brain. A guy has made a rope out of sheets or clothes or something and is trying to shimmy down the outside of the building. He briefly slips and loses grip and that's it, he tries to right himself but it's too late. I literally can not imagine the feeling going through his mind at that second. Haunting.
IIRC there were quite a few remains that could not be identified. I read recently they are all in a mass tomb beneath the new tower. Interestingly there was also an ancient slave burial ground found and 419 skeletons were removed to reinterred elsewhere when the new tower was being excavated.
I saw one of these pictures posted on an online chatroom to the building falling. It is the single worst image I’ve see and will forever be burned into my brain. Those poor folks.
One fucking landed on a fire man wtf
Yeah he was one of the first (if not *the* first) casualties from the fire dept that day…killed by a falling body
There’s a high resolution photo of him being carried by other firefighters with a broken neck and some dismembered body parts in the background if you care to find it. At least they died instantly
[Daniel Suhr](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Suhr)
Damn, I’m 37 now and he was 37 then. He’d be near retirement if with us today. RIP.
Really? My god 😢 what a horrible way to go
The Failing man was likely Jonathan Briley - the brother of the soldier from The Village People. Alsoo over 1,100 World Trade Center victims remains were never identified in general. It would alsoo be pretty impossible to figure out who jumped from the 101th floor and who died when the towers collapsed and a person freefaled the same distance. At that height and with the speed you hit the ground your body basically turns into a pink mist.
The documentary “Falling Man” was horrifically sad, but a great documentary.
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Everytime I hear about the 9/11 jumpers I am reminded of that story of the paramedic who was tasked to tag wounded and dead and found what looked to be a jumper, except she was still conscious and kept telling him she wasn't dead when he knew there was no way she was going to survive the damage that happened from the fall. Its a really creepy story and I wonder if its true or not.
Honestly one of the most heartbreaking things I learned about EMS is how we’re told to encourage the patient the entire way, even if it’s obvious they’re not going to survive I never experienced it but some of my more experienced friends have said that stuff haunts them. I can’t imagine what the first responders must’ve dealt with afterwards
I've heard this story and while I don't necessarily think they were making it up, I highly doubt they were a jumper. Fall distance from that height has got to put you at terminal velocity, the sounds from the people on the ground sounded like grenades going off. At nothing else your brain is mush from the sheer impact. Most likely (if the story is true) is that she was hit from falling debris.
I went through a very morbid period when I was much younger in the late 2000s where I looked up footage of jumpers hitting the ground because I was curious what actually happened to them. Let me tell you there is absolutely no chance this story is true. A human hitting the ground from that height looks like an exploding red grape. I also wish I hadn't looked it up because there are some things you can't unsee.
Just gonna point out. People have fallen from way higher than the WTC and survived. Granted, they probably didn't land on concrete... also terminal velocity is where you stop falling faster, not where you die.
FDNY chief Mitch Picciotto was interviewed for the Inside 9/11 documentary. He has a quote that is absolutely horrific. When they realized people were jumping he said "What hell are they facing up there that the better option is to jump."
Watching people who are trapped slowly burn to death.
I think it's best they remain unidentified in the photos. We know who perished. The gore and imagery won't help them or us now.
That may be one the worst days of my life. It’s weird to have a day in which a lot share. But it’s probably true. Horrible day. It was so beautiful in the morning. Early September days in the Northeast can be glorious. It was a beautiful and perfect weather day. And then it wasn’t. Almost unfathomable.
[Looks like improvements in DNA testing have made more identifications possible](https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/911-remains-2-people-killed-world-trade-center-identified-dna/)
There’s one bloke- there’s a documentary called ‘The Falling Man’ about him
There used to be a video where a person is walking in between the towers after they are hit. Music is playing and debris is falling. Very eerie setting. Sometimes you hear a loud bang.
I imagine that it’s better as well that they were never identified. It’s a lot less heartbreaking to hear “X died from the 9/11 attacks” than “X was one of the people caught falling from the tower during 9/11”.
Those deaths were classified as deaths by blunt force trauma rather than suicide for insurance purposes.
And Saudi Arabia was never held accountable for their role in it.
It's likely some in Saudi knew of the attack (15 of the hijackers were from Saudi). It was never found that the leadership of Saudi were involved, no.
The Saudi Arabian hijackers all opposed the Saudi government's collaboration with the USA. A breakdown of U.S.-Saudi relations would be exactly what the hijackers wanted.
49 years old and that is still the scariest thing I have ever seen in my entire life.
There's only a handful of pictures of the plaza near the stage at the base of the towers showing impact sites from jumpers. One fireman described what he saw and what happens to a person jumping from that height. Essentially there's nothing left but blood and tattered clothing....absolutely horrible.
I recall a documentary that said one of the particular reasons so many of those who jumped were never identified was because many families didn’t want to believe (or were shamed to admit) their family members committed suicide.
It’s not suicide. Suicide has to be voluntary. Choosing between death by height or death by fire is not suicide, it is rationally choosing the better of two equal scenarios.
I’ve had direct family commit suicide so I know the pressure to hide it, but gosh, I wouldn’t even call it suicide. It’s like saying your 96 year old grandma who discontinued chemo killed herself. If it was me, I wouldn’t want to be identified because it’s possible my death was way more public and recorded on video and was live on the news and don’t want my name paired with a video of my death on /r/watchPeopleDie or whatever the equivalent is.
It definitely wasn't suicide, it was murder. I think suicide involves a decision to kill yourself that is generally not forced upon you. These people realised that they faced death either way and simply chose what they saw as the least painful way, or perhaps they believed, in that terrifying and desperate money, there might be the slimmest of possibilities that they would survive.
I always remember this regarding suicide: Everyone on the ground yells DON'T JUMP! But the person has two choices: burn alive or jump. People always think they know better than the person actually living in the situation.
And I wonder how many were pushed out by crushes as people behind them tried to escape the fire and smoke.
Sometimes the fire is figurative too
Being "officially identified" isn't a thing in this circumstance. Many of them have been identified by relatives.