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Adele
The Huggy Merchant
Bumppo's Patron since [at least]:
May 17 2002
Status: offline
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 Posted - September 01 2002 : 10:37:54 AM
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Coming up to the anniversary of 9/11, British television (and I am sure television around the world), is starting a build up of documentarys about the tragedy.
It is strange how, when you think you have seen it all, there is always more...
The Firefighters Story was made by a filmaker who was in NY prior to 9/11 making a short film about firefighters...talk about being in the right place at the right time! There was also a second documentary I watched which was made up primarily of interviews with people who had been in the towers and had survived. There were so many shocking, horrifying tales....of the last survivors making it out of the towers and seeing the bodies all around them of people who had jumped, and even bodyparts of the aeroplane passengers; the telephone calls, made and received; the people who died trying to save others.....Every person has a story to tell, and each one is so uniquely fascinating. There were three people who particularly I remember though....
The first was a man who had just escaped one of the towers when it collapsed, and he told the story of how he had dived under a building overhang to protect himself. As he was there he started praying to Jesus, when suddenly he was joined by a second man who told him "Pray to Jesus...pray" and he turned round and said "I AM praying", to which his companion said, "Good" and continued to pray. There was almost a black humour in the tale. As the building toppled, a third man, believed to be an FBI agent, threw himself over the two men protecting them from the falling tower. As the dust settled, the three men got up, the FBI agent checked that they were all ok, and then said "I have to go help other people now" and disappeared into the dust. The narrator of this tale said he never knew who the agent was, and never saw him again. I keep thinking of the hundreds of people who have a nameless person to thank.
The second story was from the person believed to be the last person to escape the tower, and he told his story, obviously wracked with guilt about leaving behind some of his injured work colleagues, and so obviously destroyed by his experience that it was quite excruciating to watch someone working so hard to keep themselves together. He told of the overwhelming smoke and how he had watched people 'go to sleep' and how he had so very nearly done the same. This is a person who you know will never get over what happened, and who will never be the same again.
The third story was from the father of a firefighter. His sons body had not been recovered until months after 9/11, and was then held for some time before it was released to the family. The father explained that the reason for the delay in releasing his sons body had been due to the fact that his sons body was entwined with a female body. The father then went on to explain that the coroners office had told him that the way these two bodies had been meshed together led them to the conclusion that the firefighter had either been carrying the woman, or had been protecting her when they both perished. The father had drawn a great deal of comfort from this fact.
Every time I hear one of these stories, the number of 2,819 faceless people who died reduces....they have faces...and it becomes more personal and even more heartbreaking.
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