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Inside-the-Twin-Towers-on-9-11-MATURE-AUDIENCES-ONLY · Crime and Horror

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Speaker 1: On September eleventh, two thousand and one, nineteen men who
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Speaker 1: had been trained by the extremist group Al Qaida launched
0:06
Speaker 1: a terrorist attack against the United States of America. The
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Speaker 1: attackers simultaneously hijacked four large passenger airplanes with the intention
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Speaker 1: of crashing them into major US landmarks, trying to inflict
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Speaker 1: as much death and destruction as possible.
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Speaker 2: Two of the.
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Speaker 1: Planes were flown into the Twin Towers of the World
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Speaker 1: Trade Center in New York City, one of the planes
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Speaker 1: was flown into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and the
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Speaker 1: fourth plane crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. It's
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Speaker 1: believed that fourth plane was on a collision course with
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Speaker 1: the US Capitol Building, but some of the passengers on
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Speaker 1: board realized they were being hijacked, and so they rushed
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Speaker 1: the cockpit and tried to overpower the hijackers, and during
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Speaker 1: this struggle, the hijackers intentionally flew the plane into the ground.
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Speaker 1: All told, nearly three thousand people were killed during this
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Speaker 1: highly coordinated attack.
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Speaker 2: Over four hundred of which were first responders like.
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Speaker 1: New York firefighters and police, and emergency medical tiesnicians. This attack,
1:01
Speaker 1: which is now referred to as just nine to eleven,
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Speaker 1: was one of the most covered media events of all time.
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Speaker 1: As such, today when you google nine to eleven, you
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Speaker 1: can see and hear the attack as it happened, almost
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Speaker 1: minute by minute. But the footage is so overwhelming and
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Speaker 1: apocalyptic and surreal that unless you were literally there on
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Speaker 1: nine to eleven or knew someone who was there at
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Speaker 1: the end of it, after you're done consuming all of
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Speaker 1: this footage, it feels like you just watched a really
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Speaker 1: distressing movie, not you just watched an actual terrorist attack.
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Speaker 1: And so today, in recognition of the twentieth anniversary of
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Speaker 1: the nine to eleven attacks, I'm going to share a
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Speaker 1: first hand account that will actually take you inside the attacks.
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Speaker 1: And this story will not feel like a movie. It
1:46
Speaker 1: will feel very raw and very real. Full disclosure. Before
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Speaker 1: we get into this first person narrative, I had to
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Speaker 1: make some educated guesses about the physical layout of the
1:55
Speaker 1: inside of the North Tower. Now, it's based on floor
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Speaker 1: plans that was looking looking at and videos and pictures
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Speaker 1: and testimonials, but there are certain details that.
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Speaker 2: I'm just not one hundred percent on.
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Speaker 1: However, these are very small details that will not detract
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Speaker 1: from the story even if they're inaccurate. I have gone
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Speaker 1: way out of my way to make sure that the
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Speaker 1: story I tell you is as close to the actual
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Speaker 1: story as it possibly can be. And so with that
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Speaker 1: in mind, let's get into today's story. On Tuesday, September eleventh,
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Speaker 1: two thousand and one, thirty year old Michael Wright hopped
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Speaker 1: into a crowded elevator and pressed the number eighty one.
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Speaker 1: Michael was an account executive for a telecommunications company that
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Speaker 1: operated out of New York's famous World Trade Center. The
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Speaker 1: World Trade Center was located in the financial district of
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Speaker 1: Lower Manhattan. It was made up of seven different buildings.
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Speaker 1: Michael's building was one of the two identical, massive one
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Speaker 1: hundred and ten story tall skyscrapers that were collectively called
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Speaker 1: the Twin Towers, and then separately they were called the
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Speaker 1: North Tower and.
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Speaker 2: The South Tower. Michael's company was in the North Tower.
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Speaker 1: Once the elevator reached floor eighty one, the doors opened up,
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Speaker 1: and Michael squeezed his way out of the car, and
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Speaker 1: right ahead of him on the wall right in front
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Speaker 1: of him, he would have seen three other elevator doors,
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Speaker 1: and then on the wall behind him there would have
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Speaker 1: been another three elevator doors, one of which he just exited.
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Speaker 1: To his right there was just a wall, and then
3:32
Speaker 1: to his left was a set of glass doors that
3:34
Speaker 1: fed out into this big hallway that wrapped all the
3:37
Speaker 1: way around the building. Now, this hallway there were offices
3:40
Speaker 1: on either side as you went around the eighty first floor,
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Speaker 1: but while you were in this hallway, you couldn't actually
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Speaker 1: look out the windows and see this incredible view of
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Speaker 1: New York. The views were only accessible once you were
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Speaker 1: inside of these various office buildings. And so Michael, he
3:55
Speaker 1: gets out of the elevator, he turns left, he goes
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Speaker 1: through those doors, and then he turns right and he
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Speaker 1: starts walking down this hallway, and then he stops in
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Speaker 1: front of this wooden door on his left, and this
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Speaker 1: was the door to his company, which was called Networks Plus.
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Speaker 2: So he opens that up.
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Speaker 1: And right in front of him is this huge open
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Speaker 1: office space with all these cubicles. And even though it
4:13
Speaker 1: was quite early, dozens of his coworkers were already there
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Speaker 1: with their headsets on and their chatting and clicking away
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Speaker 1: on their computers. But Michael was not in a rush.
4:21
Speaker 1: He had a morning routine and he was not about
4:23
Speaker 1: to break it now. And so he just strolled into
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Speaker 1: the room. He said hi to a couple people, and
4:27
Speaker 1: he walked as if he was going towards the very
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Speaker 1: back of the office, towards the windows. But just before
4:31
Speaker 1: he reached the windows, he found his cubicle on the right,
4:34
Speaker 1: and so he dropped his bag next to his chair,
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Speaker 1: but he didn't sit down.
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Speaker 2: Instead, he just kept on walking.
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Speaker 1: He turned right and he went down this corridor and
4:41
Speaker 1: then he turned right and he was facing this cafeteria,
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Speaker 1: and the cafeteria for the company, it was really just
4:46
Speaker 1: a small room with a couple of tables and chairs.
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Speaker 1: There was a fridge, there was a coffee machine. It
4:51
Speaker 1: was really just kind of a lounge area. So he
4:53
Speaker 1: went in there and he grabbed a paper cup, he
4:55
Speaker 1: filled it with coffee, and then he grabbed a brand
4:57
Speaker 1: muffin that was on a community tray. And then he
4:59
Speaker 1: left the cafeteria and went back to his desk and
5:01
Speaker 1: he sat down. And when he sat down, it was
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Speaker 1: seven forty five am, And so he didn't immediately turn
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Speaker 1: on his computer and throw his headset on and just
5:09
Speaker 1: dive into work. Instead, he just kind of enjoyed his coffee,
5:12
Speaker 1: enjoyed his brand muffin and thought about what he was
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Speaker 1: going to do that day. Typically on Tuesdays, Michael would
5:18
Speaker 1: go out and see clients and he would make some
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Speaker 1: sales calls. And so Michael was just kind of sitting
5:21
Speaker 1: there getting his head right for the day. And then
5:23
Speaker 1: after he finished his breakfast, he threw on his headset,
5:26
Speaker 1: he powered up his computer, he checked his email, he
5:28
Speaker 1: started calling around to different clients to set up meetings
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Speaker 1: for later that day. And then around eight forty am,
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Speaker 1: Michael realized he had to go to the bathroom, and
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Speaker 1: so Michael took off his headset, he stood up, he
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Speaker 1: turned around, he left his cubicle, and then instead of
5:41
Speaker 1: walking deeper into the office towards the windows in the cafeteria,
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Speaker 1: he turned left and started walking back towards the main
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Speaker 1: door that fed into his office. So he gets to
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Speaker 1: this door, he opens it up, he steps out into
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Speaker 1: the main hallway, and then he turns left and starts
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Speaker 1: walking away from where the elevators are.
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Speaker 2: Those are down to his right, and so.
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Speaker 1: He walks maybe ten or fifteen feet down this main
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Speaker 1: hallway before he reaches a door to the men's room,
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Speaker 1: which is on his right, and so he notices on
6:07
Speaker 1: the door. There's this sign that he hadn't seen before
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Speaker 1: that said please keep the bathroom clean. So he reads
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Speaker 1: the sign, doesn't think much of it, pushes the door open,
6:14
Speaker 1: and when he gets in there, there's a couple of
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Speaker 1: his male colleagues that are kind of yucking it up
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Speaker 1: in the corner, and they're actually laughing about the sign
6:21
Speaker 1: that was on the bathroom door. Bank of America had
6:24
Speaker 1: just recently moved into the eighty first floor, so now
6:27
Speaker 1: Michael and his company were sharing this floor with Bank
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Speaker 1: of America, and Bank of America had put that sign
6:33
Speaker 1: on the bathroom door, and so the guys were saying, oh,
6:36
Speaker 1: so you come into our space and the first day
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Speaker 1: you hear, you're telling us we're dirty. And so Michael
6:40
Speaker 1: he kind of laughed along with them, because once you
6:42
Speaker 1: put it in context, it did seem kind of passive aggressive.
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Speaker 2: At eight forty six am.
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Speaker 1: Michael turned away from this group of laughing guys and
6:49
Speaker 1: began walking over to the urinals on the wall. But
6:52
Speaker 1: before he even got to the urinals, suddenly the building
6:56
Speaker 1: sholted hard to one side. Now, the twin towers were
6:59
Speaker 1: built with stack and very heavy winds and so the
7:02
Speaker 1: way they were constructed to do that was they would
7:04
Speaker 1: flex several inches in any direction at any time.
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Speaker 2: But this was not several inches.
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Speaker 1: This was several feet and it was so violent and
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Speaker 1: so sudden that the marble on the walls actually cracked
7:16
Speaker 1: and fell off, and the guys in the bathroom, most
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Speaker 1: of them lost their balance and fell to the ground.
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Speaker 1: And the one guy who was inside of a stall,
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Speaker 1: he comes running out.
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Speaker 2: He burst the door open. He's buttoning his pants up
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Speaker 2: and he's screaming. What was that?
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Speaker 1: Michael, after standing back up, began thinking to himself, you know,
7:32
Speaker 1: did I hear a sound?
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Speaker 2: Was there an explosion? You know? What was that?
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Speaker 1: It must have been a gas main explosion? What else
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Speaker 1: could that have possibly been? There was just nothing else
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Speaker 1: he could think of that would account for that big
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Speaker 1: of a shift. But there was just no time to
7:45
Speaker 1: sit there and dwell on how this happened, because the
7:48
Speaker 1: alarms in the building.
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Speaker 2: Started going off, and so Michael and the.
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Speaker 1: Other guys that were in there, they just left the
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Speaker 1: bathroom to go out to the hallway to see what
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Speaker 1: was going on. And when Michael got out there, he
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Speaker 1: looked left down the main hallway, passed his office all
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Speaker 1: the way down to the elevators, and all the way
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Speaker 1: down there he could see there was clearly fire spitting
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Speaker 1: out of the elevator lobby area. And so before Michael
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Speaker 1: could even process that there was this fire and what
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Speaker 1: he was going to do about it, he heard screaming,
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Speaker 1: a woman screaming behind him. The women's bathroom was right
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Speaker 1: next to the men's bathroom, and so Michael and a
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Speaker 1: couple of the other guys who had been in the
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Speaker 1: bathroom with him, they go running into the women's room
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Speaker 1: and there was this stall, this bathroom stall in the
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Speaker 1: women's room that had been kind of bent over, and
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Speaker 1: they would turn out during the shift in the building.
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Speaker 1: The door jam on one of the stalls had folded over,
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Speaker 1: kind of locking it in place, and there was a
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Speaker 1: woman on the other side of the stall. There was
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Speaker 1: a woman in the stall, and so that was the
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Speaker 1: woman who was screaming. And so the men they get
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Speaker 1: in there, they start kicking and punching the store trying
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Speaker 1: to get it open, and finally they do and they're
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Speaker 1: able to pull this woman out. They go back out
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Speaker 1: into the hallway and right away Michael notices there is
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Speaker 1: a cloud of white smoke that is filling the entire hallway.
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Speaker 1: It's towards the top, so they can kind of duck
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Speaker 1: down to avoid the small oh. And so Michael's hunched
9:01
Speaker 1: down and he looks left down the hallway towards where
9:04
Speaker 1: he knows this fire is, and he sees the fire
9:06
Speaker 1: has gotten much larger and the flames have jumped into
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Speaker 1: the hallway. It's still pretty far away, but clearly this
9:13
Speaker 1: fire is spreading. And so Michael he's crouched down and
9:15
Speaker 1: he's watching as people are streaming out of his office
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Speaker 1: down the hall and everyone's kind of avoiding this fire.
9:21
Speaker 1: They're running up to where Michael and the others have congregated. Michael,
9:24
Speaker 1: who's crouched down, he's still kind of just looking generally
9:26
Speaker 1: towards the fire, almost stunned when he notices something about
9:29
Speaker 1: the ground. There was this huge crack in the ground
9:34
Speaker 1: that ran from where he was all the way down
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Speaker 1: the hall, all the way to the fire. And then
9:38
Speaker 1: Michael turned around and saw that crack actually continued all
9:42
Speaker 1: the way in the other direction. It looks like the
9:44
Speaker 1: floor had literally broken in half, and it was like
9:47
Speaker 1: the floor was going to fall off the building. And
9:50
Speaker 1: so as Michael is crouched down, just staring at this crack,
9:53
Speaker 1: not really sure what to think about it. He started
9:55
Speaker 1: to listen to what people were saying in the hall.
9:57
Speaker 1: Everyone's beginning to speculate about what caused this fire, what
10:02
Speaker 1: caused the building to shift like that, and a lot
10:04
Speaker 1: of people tended to believe it was a gas maine explosion,
10:07
Speaker 1: which is what Michael thought. Other people suggested, you know,
10:10
Speaker 1: maybe it was an earthquake, and some outliers said it could.
10:13
Speaker 2: Have been a bomb.
10:14
Speaker 1: But little did anybody know what had happened to their
10:16
Speaker 1: building was far worse than anything they could have imagined.
10:20
Speaker 1: A few minutes earlier, at eight forty six am, as
10:22
Speaker 1: Michael stood in the bathroom kind of yucking it up
10:24
Speaker 1: with the other guys that were in there, American Airlines
10:27
Speaker 1: Flight eleven, which was this massive seven sixty seven passenger
10:30
Speaker 1: airplane carrying ninety one passengers, five of which were the hijackers,
10:35
Speaker 1: they slammed into Michael's tower twelve floors above Michael's head.
10:40
Speaker 1: The plane was traveling at about four hundred and sixty
10:43
Speaker 1: six miles per hour when it.
10:44
Speaker 2: Struck the building.
10:45
Speaker 1: The impact and subsequent explosion immediately killed not only everyone
10:50
Speaker 1: on board the plane, but hundreds of people that were
10:53
Speaker 1: inside of the impact zone, which was between fours ninety
10:56
Speaker 1: three and ninety nine. The plane also went right through
10:59
Speaker 1: the building all of the stairwells and the elevator shafts,
11:03
Speaker 1: meaning anyone who was still alive from floors ninety three
11:06
Speaker 1: all the way to the top floor one hundred and ten.
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Speaker 1: All those people they didn't have an escape route anymore,
11:12
Speaker 1: so they were trapped.
11:13
Speaker 2: They just didn't know it yet. And to make an.
11:15
Speaker 1: Already horrible situation even worse, after this plane detonates inside
11:20
Speaker 1: of the North Tower, it sends nine thousand gallons of
11:24
Speaker 1: burning jet fuel down these destroyed elevator shafts, and as
11:28
Speaker 1: this fuel tumbled, it would splash onto many of the
11:31
Speaker 1: floors below, like floor eighty one. The fuel would kind
11:34
Speaker 1: of splash through the openings to the elevator doors, and
11:37
Speaker 1: once a little bit had landed on that floor, the
11:39
Speaker 1: whole floor would catch on fire. But Michael and the
11:42
Speaker 1: rest of the people on floor eighty one were completely
11:45
Speaker 1: oblivious to this. All they knew was there's a fire
11:48
Speaker 1: over there, and so we need to get away from it.
11:50
Speaker 1: But as Michael stood up from this crack and began
11:52
Speaker 1: kind of looking around to see what they were going
11:54
Speaker 1: to do next. He noticed that most of the people,
11:57
Speaker 1: while they were staying calm, were not really running to evacuate.
12:00
Speaker 2: They were just kind of standing around.
12:02
Speaker 1: And the different business managers from different departments were just
12:04
Speaker 1: kind of telling their staff members to stay calm and
12:07
Speaker 1: hold on, let's get our thoughts together. And Michael, who
12:10
Speaker 1: was not panicked at least not yet, he's looking around thinking,
12:13
Speaker 1: you know what, let's just get off this floor.
12:15
Speaker 2: We need to get off this floor.
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Speaker 1: And so he remembered that a lot of his friends,
12:18
Speaker 1: they would sneak out of the office and they would
12:20
Speaker 1: smoke cigarettes in this one particular emergency stairwell that was
12:24
Speaker 1: close to them. And so Michael just started yelling to
12:26
Speaker 1: the group, Hey, we got to go now, now we
12:28
Speaker 1: need to leave.
12:28
Speaker 2: There's stairs over there. Follow me.
12:30
Speaker 1: And so Michael kind of cut through the crowd, and
12:32
Speaker 1: the crowd was very quick to respond.
12:33
Speaker 2: They kind of followed him, and he opened the door.
12:35
Speaker 1: He goes into the stairwell and he lets some people
12:37
Speaker 1: go in, and before long there's a very orderly double
12:40
Speaker 1: file line making their way down the stairwell. Michael remembers
12:44
Speaker 1: after he joined this double file line and began going
12:47
Speaker 1: down the steps, this immediate sense of relief, especially after
12:50
Speaker 1: they got down a couple of flights away from the
12:52
Speaker 1: eighty first floor, because in his mind, and in a
12:55
Speaker 1: lot of other people's minds that were in the stairwell
12:58
Speaker 1: with him, the problem was there.
13:00
Speaker 2: It was the eighty first floor.
13:01
Speaker 1: There was this one fire, it was localized, it would
13:03
Speaker 1: be dealt with, and they are already all the way
13:06
Speaker 1: down here. They'll be out of the building soon, so
13:08
Speaker 1: they got nothing to worry about. And so Michael and
13:10
Speaker 1: the rest of his coworkers just kept making their way
13:12
Speaker 1: down the stairs with very slow progress, and sometimes it
13:15
Speaker 1: would come to a complete standstill because other people on
13:18
Speaker 1: lower floors were entering the stairwell and joining in in
13:21
Speaker 1: this evacuation. But Michael remembers nobody was freaking out, no
13:25
Speaker 1: one was panicking. There were some people that, you know,
13:27
Speaker 1: were more worked up about it, but there really was
13:29
Speaker 1: this sense of safety that they were in these stairs
13:32
Speaker 1: and that everything was going fine. And so as they're
13:35
Speaker 1: kind of making their way down, most people were concerned
13:37
Speaker 1: with trying to place a call to their family to
13:40
Speaker 1: just tell them, Hey, you know, I'm okay. This crazy
13:42
Speaker 1: thing happened to work today, but you know, I'm going
13:43
Speaker 1: to be fine. Michael had left his cell phone on
13:46
Speaker 1: his desk, so he didn't have a way to call
13:48
Speaker 1: his family. He got a co worker to give him
13:50
Speaker 1: his phone, and Michael tried dozens of times to reach
13:53
Speaker 1: his wife, Jenny, but when he called her, she didn't
13:55
Speaker 1: pick up, and so eventually he just gave the phone
13:57
Speaker 1: back to his coworker and just continued down the steps.
14:00
Speaker 1: At about nine am, so that would have been about
14:02
Speaker 1: ten or twelve minutes into this evacuation. Down the stairs, Michael,
14:05
Speaker 1: who again is in relatively good spirits. He knows there's
14:08
Speaker 1: danger upstairs, but you know they're safe down here. He
14:11
Speaker 1: makes this kind of off colored joke to lighten the
14:14
Speaker 1: mood in the stairwell. Michael turns to one of his
14:16
Speaker 1: male colleagues and pretends to confess his love to him
14:20
Speaker 1: and tells him the only reason I'm confessing it to
14:22
Speaker 1: now is because we're going to die here anyways. Now,
14:26
Speaker 1: the joke here in Michael's mind was, of course, we're
14:28
Speaker 1: not going to die here. He was intentionally dramatizing the
14:31
Speaker 1: entire situation because they were safe. They were in the stairwell,
14:34
Speaker 1: they were evacuating. The fire was up there, they're down here.
14:37
Speaker 1: Everything is fine.
14:38
Speaker 2: And some people thought the joke was kind of funny
14:40
Speaker 2: and they laughed at it.
14:41
Speaker 1: But the guy right ahead of Michael didn't think it
14:43
Speaker 1: was funny, and he turned around and looked at Michael
14:46
Speaker 1: and said, hey, man, you got to keep your humor
14:47
Speaker 1: down in here. So Michael he did immediately regret telling
14:50
Speaker 1: his joke, but not because he was suddenly scared that
14:53
Speaker 1: this situation was far more dangerous than he was realizing,
14:56
Speaker 1: but because he just felt bad for offending some people.
14:59
Speaker 1: Michael would lay to reflect on this moment, and he
15:02
Speaker 1: would say he was so naive that even though he
15:05
Speaker 1: had seen the fire and seen the physical damage that
15:08
Speaker 1: crack on the ground and the marble falling off the wall,
15:10
Speaker 1: that despite all that, it was like he just couldn't
15:13
Speaker 1: fathom that they were actually in any real danger inside
15:16
Speaker 1: of the stairwell. He really thought they were going to
15:18
Speaker 1: be just fine. But of course, as history would show us,
15:21
Speaker 1: Michael was wrong. Around the time that Michael was scolded
15:24
Speaker 1: for his off color joke, about two hundred feet to
15:27
Speaker 1: the south of the tower they were in. Another passenger airplane,
15:31
Speaker 1: United Airlines Flight one seventy five, crashed into the south
15:35
Speaker 1: side of the South Tower. All sixty five passengers on board,
15:39
Speaker 1: which included the five hijackers, were killed instantly. The plane
15:42
Speaker 1: was traveling at about five hundred and ninety miles an
15:45
Speaker 1: hour when it struck the South Tower, and it hit
15:48
Speaker 1: between floors seventy seven and eighty five, killing hundreds of
15:51
Speaker 1: people in the impact site and trapping hundreds more above it.
15:55
Speaker 1: And then, just like the North Tower, after this plane
15:58
Speaker 1: detonated inside of the South town, it sent thousands of
16:01
Speaker 1: gallons of burning jet fuel down these destroyed elevator shafts,
16:05
Speaker 1: igniting fires on many floors below. Despite being so physically
16:09
Speaker 1: close to this second plane crash, Michael didn't hear it,
16:12
Speaker 1: and apparently no one else in the stairwell did either,
16:15
Speaker 1: or they just didn't recognize it for what it was,
16:18
Speaker 1: and so Michael and the others just continued walking down
16:20
Speaker 1: the stairwell thinking everything was fine. Around nine thirty am,
16:24
Speaker 1: so that's about forty minutes into their evacuation, Michael and
16:27
Speaker 1: the rest of his coworkers reached floor forty and this
16:30
Speaker 1: was the first time they saw firefighters, New York firefighters
16:34
Speaker 1: running up the stairs to go fight this fire, and
16:36
Speaker 1: so naturally Michael and the others asked the firemen if
16:39
Speaker 1: they knew what had caused this fire, what was going on,
16:42
Speaker 1: But the firefighters just said.
16:43
Speaker 2: Look, we don't know exactly what caused this, but go down,
16:46
Speaker 2: it's safe down there.
16:47
Speaker 1: Michael would remember about seeing these firefighters that they all
16:50
Speaker 1: had a similar look on their face. They had this
16:53
Speaker 1: kind of stoic, just kind of neutral look on their face,
16:56
Speaker 1: very calm, very mission oriented as they charged up the
16:59
Speaker 1: stairs and all this heavy gear. But years later, as
17:02
Speaker 1: Michael reflected on that situation, he thinks about their faces
17:06
Speaker 1: and now he believes the look they had.
17:08
Speaker 2: On their face was actually fear.
17:10
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, most of the firefighters that ran past Michael
17:13
Speaker 1: and the others and went up to fight that fire
17:16
Speaker 1: in the North Tower, they would all perish. A few
17:19
Speaker 1: minutes later, Michael and the others made it down to
17:21
Speaker 1: floor thirty, and right around the time they got there,
17:24
Speaker 1: they heard people behind them above them from higher floors
17:27
Speaker 1: yelling for people to get out of the way, and
17:29
Speaker 1: so Michael turned around and looked up and he saw
17:32
Speaker 1: there were some people carrying other people down the stairs,
17:35
Speaker 1: and they were trying to clear a path to get
17:37
Speaker 1: these injured people down, and so Michael, like everybody else,
17:40
Speaker 1: kind of sucked up against the side of the wall
17:42
Speaker 1: to let these people pass. And when they did, he
17:45
Speaker 1: saw there were two injured people. There was one guy
17:47
Speaker 1: whose whole shirt had been burned off of his back,
17:49
Speaker 1: exposing his bare back, and he had burns on the
17:52
Speaker 1: top of his shoulder, and then the other injured person
17:55
Speaker 1: was this woman with severe burns on her face. After
17:58
Speaker 1: they passed, Michael and the people around him kind of
18:00
Speaker 1: got back in line and just kept moving down the stairs.
18:04
Speaker 2: But now they were on edge.
18:05
Speaker 1: Everyone was kind of thinking to themselves, you know, how
18:08
Speaker 1: bad is this fire?
18:09
Speaker 2: Who else got hurt? What actually happened up there?
18:11
Speaker 1: A few minutes later, Michael and his co workers got
18:14
Speaker 1: down to floor twenty and that's when they saw there
18:17
Speaker 1: was this firefighter yelling to everyone asking, Hey, does anybody
18:20
Speaker 1: know CPR?
18:21
Speaker 2: I need volunteers? Who knows CPR?
18:23
Speaker 1: And so Michael he had been trained in CPR ten
18:26
Speaker 1: years earlier in college, and while he hadn't done it
18:29
Speaker 1: in a while, he felt confident that push came to
18:31
Speaker 1: shove he could do it, and so he and another
18:34
Speaker 1: guy that was near him volunteered to be the CPR guys.
18:37
Speaker 1: And so they went over to this firefighter who explained
18:39
Speaker 1: to them, you know, stay right here and be ready
18:41
Speaker 1: to do CPR on anyone that is brought down to you,
18:44
Speaker 1: and if anybody else needs help, I need you to
18:46
Speaker 1: try to help them too, So just basically be here
18:48
Speaker 1: as a resource. And so Michael and the other volunteers say,
18:51
Speaker 1: no problem, and they stay right there, and the firefighter
18:54
Speaker 1: grabs all of his heavy equipment and he charges up
18:56
Speaker 1: the stairs.
18:57
Speaker 2: Over the next ten minutes.
18:58
Speaker 1: Michael and this other guy did not need to perform CPR. However,
19:02
Speaker 1: they did assist one very heavy man that was having
19:05
Speaker 1: a very hard time breathing. They helped walk him down
19:07
Speaker 1: all the way to the bottom, and then Michael and
19:09
Speaker 1: the other volunteer they turned around and ran back up
19:12
Speaker 1: to the twentieth floor.
19:14
Speaker 2: And as they're running up.
19:15
Speaker 1: They're asking everyone around them, hey, do you need help,
19:17
Speaker 1: to need help, But nobody needed any help, And so
19:19
Speaker 1: when they got back up to the twentieth floor, they
19:21
Speaker 1: were there for a couple more minutes, and then by
19:23
Speaker 1: about nine to fifty am.
19:25
Speaker 2: There were no more people coming down the stairs.
19:27
Speaker 1: It was just Michael and this other volunteer, and so
19:30
Speaker 1: that's when they decided that it's time to go, and
19:32
Speaker 1: so they bounded down the stairs and they got all
19:34
Speaker 1: the way to the ground floor at about nine to
19:36
Speaker 1: fifty five am, and Michael he opened the door that
19:39
Speaker 1: led out to the ground floor, which was the plaza level,
19:42
Speaker 1: and what he saw was the worst thing he had
19:45
Speaker 1: ever seen in his life. The people that were located
19:47
Speaker 1: in the North and South tower above the impact sites
19:51
Speaker 1: would have eventually realized they did not have an escape route.
19:54
Speaker 1: The stairwells were blocked, the elevators didn't work, and so
19:57
Speaker 1: naturally the only way to go was up. And so
20:00
Speaker 1: I'm sure initially there was some speculation amongst these people
20:04
Speaker 1: that a helicopter could come up and get them, or
20:07
Speaker 1: some other way they were going to be rescued. We
20:09
Speaker 1: just need to get higher and higher and higher. But
20:12
Speaker 1: eventually they got to the roof and they got to
20:14
Speaker 1: the upper levels and there was no rescue. And the
20:17
Speaker 1: fire that was raging below them from the jet fuel,
20:19
Speaker 1: it was growing and creeping higher and higher, and all
20:22
Speaker 1: this black smoke was leaking into the vents of these
20:25
Speaker 1: upper floors, and so the heat and the smoke and
20:28
Speaker 1: the flames was driving these people to the absolute top
20:31
Speaker 1: of this building. And eventually, these people who were trapped,
20:34
Speaker 1: they would have realized there isn't a rescue that's going
20:37
Speaker 1: to get us in time.
20:38
Speaker 2: We're doomed.
20:39
Speaker 1: And so these poor people, in their final moments, they
20:42
Speaker 1: picked up their phones and they called their loved ones
20:45
Speaker 1: one more time. And so there are all these totally
20:47
Speaker 1: heartbreaking messages of these trapped people calling their family to
20:51
Speaker 1: say how much they love them and how much they're
20:53
Speaker 1: going to miss them.
20:54
Speaker 2: And there are an equal number of.
20:56
Speaker 1: Messages of these people calling their family to say how
20:59
Speaker 1: scared they are that.
21:00
Speaker 2: They're not ready to die.
21:01
Speaker 1: Eventually, the fire, the heat, the smoke would become so
21:04
Speaker 1: intense that these trapped people would actually go outside the
21:08
Speaker 1: building and would hang on to the windows, dangling hundreds
21:11
Speaker 1: and hundreds of feet off the ground because there was
21:14
Speaker 1: nowhere else to go. And then, eventually, when all hope
21:17
Speaker 1: was lost, these mothers and fathers, these wives, these husbands,
21:22
Speaker 1: these sisters, these brothers, these daughters, these sons, these friends,
21:25
Speaker 1: they began jumping off of the tower to their death.
21:29
Speaker 1: Almost all of them jumped alone, but at least one
21:32
Speaker 1: eyewitness saw a couple holding hands. One woman who was falling,
21:36
Speaker 1: in a final act of modesty, held her skirt down.
21:39
Speaker 1: Other people tried to make parachutes out of tablecloths and curtains,
21:42
Speaker 1: but as soon as they jumped, these things were ripped
21:45
Speaker 1: from their hands.
21:46
Speaker 2: The fall from the.
21:47
Speaker 1: Upper floors of both towers took about ten seconds, and
21:50
Speaker 1: when their bodies hit the ground, they.
21:52
Speaker 2: Weren't just broken, they were obliterated.
21:55
Speaker 1: And so Michael when he opens this door, he steps
21:58
Speaker 1: out into this lobby that's at the place level, and
22:01
Speaker 1: he turns and he looks at this huge set of
22:03
Speaker 1: windows that look out into this two hundred foot long
22:06
Speaker 1: stretch of open pavement that separates the North tower that
22:10
Speaker 1: he is in with the South tower, and scattered all
22:13
Speaker 1: across this stretch of pavement are about fifty different bodies.
22:17
Speaker 1: The majority of these people had jumped, the rest for
22:20
Speaker 1: either people that had fallen out of the tower from
22:23
Speaker 1: the impact of the plane, or they were passengers on
22:26
Speaker 1: board one of the two planes that actually hit the towers.
22:29
Speaker 1: Michael had no way of processing what he was looking
22:32
Speaker 1: at because as far as he understood, there was just
22:35
Speaker 1: this fire at the top of the tower he was in.
22:38
Speaker 2: How could all these people be out here? What happened
22:40
Speaker 2: to them?
22:40
Speaker 1: And so as he's scanning the absolute horrors outside, he
22:44
Speaker 1: also sees there is blood all over the windows, and
22:47
Speaker 1: that was from the people that had fallen close to
22:49
Speaker 1: the building. And so as he's seeing all this blood
22:52
Speaker 1: in this carnage, he just puts his hand up ober
22:54
Speaker 1: his eyes, like he doesn't want to look at what's
22:56
Speaker 1: going on outside. He just can't possibly process it. And
23:00
Speaker 1: so instead he and this other guy they say, okay,
23:02
Speaker 1: let's not go outside, because if we go outside, something could.
23:05
Speaker 2: Land on us, a person could land on us. We
23:07
Speaker 2: don't know what's going on out there.
23:08
Speaker 1: Let's go down one more level because there was another
23:11
Speaker 1: set of stairs right ahead of them in the lobby
23:14
Speaker 1: that went down to the shopping mall, and this shopping
23:16
Speaker 1: mall extended outside away from the tower, and there was
23:20
Speaker 1: street access maybe a half a block away, and so
23:22
Speaker 1: Michael and this other guy he was with, they run.
23:24
Speaker 2: Over to the stairs.
23:25
Speaker 1: They go down into the shopping mall, and down there
23:28
Speaker 1: it's dark and the sprinklers are going off and they
23:30
Speaker 1: just start running through this mall, trying to get to
23:33
Speaker 1: these stairs that'll bring them back up to the street level.
23:36
Speaker 1: And as they're going, they run into another group of
23:38
Speaker 1: people that are doing the same thing. And one of
23:40
Speaker 1: the people that was with this group was the same
23:42
Speaker 1: woman who had been trapped up in the bathroom on
23:45
Speaker 1: Michael's floor, and so Michael put his arm around her
23:47
Speaker 1: and was just kind of being comforting, and they start
23:49
Speaker 1: walking together, and Michael realized she was very shaken up
23:52
Speaker 1: by the bodies she had seen outside, and even though
23:55
Speaker 1: Michael was very shaken up by a two he comforted
23:57
Speaker 1: her and said, you know, we got to keep going,
23:59
Speaker 1: We got to keep and so the two of them
24:01
Speaker 1: just kept on going until they see up ahead there's
24:03
Speaker 1: an emergency worker with a glow stick kind of waving
24:06
Speaker 1: people to go, go, go towards the stairs, get up
24:09
Speaker 1: on the street, get out of here, evacuate as quickly
24:11
Speaker 1: as possible. And so Michael and this woman they run
24:14
Speaker 1: right past the emergency worker. They're not even asking any
24:17
Speaker 1: questions at this point. They just want to get away
24:19
Speaker 1: from whatever it is that's going on. And so they
24:22
Speaker 1: get to the base of the stairs when Michael hears
24:24
Speaker 1: this really loud cracking sound coming from somewhere outside, and
24:28
Speaker 1: so Michael and this woman they run up the stairs,
24:30
Speaker 1: they get out to the street, and outside it's totally chaos.
24:33
Speaker 2: There's people running around everywhere.
24:35
Speaker 1: There are papers all over the ground and other office furnishings,
24:39
Speaker 1: there are things on fire, and.
24:40
Speaker 2: Michael just instinctively looks to his right.
24:43
Speaker 1: He looks down the road because that's generally where he
24:45
Speaker 1: thought he heard that really loud cracking sound coming from.
24:48
Speaker 1: And so he found himself looking at the Millennium Hotel,
24:50
Speaker 1: which is this beautiful hotel on the other side of
24:53
Speaker 1: the road from where he was standing a little ways
24:55
Speaker 1: down to the right. And the windows of the front
24:58
Speaker 1: of the Millennium Hotel are like mir they're very reflective,
25:01
Speaker 1: and he found himself just looking at the reflection.
25:04
Speaker 2: On the Millennium Hotel and he.
25:06
Speaker 1: Noticed it was reflecting the South Tower, and the South
25:09
Speaker 1: Tower was basically across the street from the Millennium Hotel,
25:13
Speaker 1: basically a half block to the right of where Michael
25:16
Speaker 1: and this woman were, And as he's staring at this
25:18
Speaker 1: reflection of the South Tower, he suddenly realizes what that
25:22
Speaker 1: loud cracking sound was. It was the sound of the
25:26
Speaker 1: South Tower, which was still full of hundreds and hundreds
25:30
Speaker 1: of people collapsing, And so Michael is watching this South
25:34
Speaker 1: tower collapse through this reflection on the front of the
25:37
Speaker 1: Millennium Hotel. He snaps out of it and turns and
25:40
Speaker 1: he and the woman just run back down into the
25:42
Speaker 1: mall as fast as they can they can hear this
25:44
Speaker 1: unbelievably loud sound.
25:46
Speaker 2: Of thousands and thousands.
25:47
Speaker 1: Of puns of just metal crashing down almost directly on
25:51
Speaker 1: top of them, and Michael makes it to the bottom
25:53
Speaker 1: of the stairs in the mall and just leaps onto
25:55
Speaker 1: his stomach and covers his head, and he's yelling his
25:57
Speaker 1: wife and his son's name, because that's all he can
26:00
Speaker 1: think about. And then suddenly everything goes black, and at
26:02
Speaker 1: the same time, suddenly his mouth, his ears, his nose,
26:05
Speaker 1: everything is just packed with what felt like sand, when
26:08
Speaker 1: in reality, it was this white dust that was made
26:10
Speaker 1: from the collapse of the South tower, and it was
26:13
Speaker 1: made up of pulprized concrete and asbestos and other very
26:16
Speaker 1: toxic chemicals. So as all these building materials are falling
26:19
Speaker 1: down into the mall, also there was this rush of
26:23
Speaker 1: this white dust and so Michael is just laying there,
26:25
Speaker 1: he can barely breathe, and he's hearing all these big
26:28
Speaker 1: pieces of metal come smashing down all around him, and
26:31
Speaker 1: he's getting ready mentally to just die at any moment.
26:33
Speaker 1: But after a few agonizing seconds, these sounds of the
26:37
Speaker 1: falling materials from the South Tower began to cease, after
26:41
Speaker 1: the collapse was basically done, and suddenly Michael began to
26:44
Speaker 1: hear the sound of other people crying and moaning, and
26:48
Speaker 1: so Michael suddenly was acutely aware that he had survived
26:51
Speaker 1: the collapse of the South Tower, but now was almost
26:54
Speaker 1: certainly going to die a slow and horrible death trapped underneath.
26:58
Speaker 2: All of this debris. So, in total.
27:00
Speaker 1: Darkness, Michael just began trying to pull his arms and
27:03
Speaker 1: legs out from whatever it was that was on top
27:05
Speaker 1: of him, and amazingly he got all of his limbs out,
27:08
Speaker 1: and right away he began trying to pull the soot
27:10
Speaker 1: and this dust out of his nose and his mouth
27:13
Speaker 1: and his ears, and as soon as his mouth was clear,
27:15
Speaker 1: he began vomiting. And then he was trying to catch
27:17
Speaker 1: his breath, but every breath he took in there was
27:19
Speaker 1: all this smoke in the air, so it was very
27:20
Speaker 1: hard to breathe, and so Michael managed to rip off
27:23
Speaker 1: his shirt, which was already soaked from the sprinklers when
27:26
Speaker 1: they first came in, and he wrapped it around his
27:28
Speaker 1: head so it was a little bit easier to breathe,
27:30
Speaker 1: and so breathing through his shirt, Michael finally composes himself.
27:33
Speaker 1: And then Michael he's thinking to himself, I don't know
27:35
Speaker 1: what I'm supposed to do right now, but I know
27:37
Speaker 1: I need to move, and so he just started crawling.
27:40
Speaker 1: He has no idea where he's going. It is truly
27:43
Speaker 1: pitch black, but he's just kind of low, crawling up
27:45
Speaker 1: and down and over things.
27:46
Speaker 2: He doesn't know where he's going. And then there's this.
27:49
Speaker 1: Miracle he sees a little ways away from him, a
27:51
Speaker 1: light comes on. He didn't know what this light was,
27:54
Speaker 1: but he's in survival mode and at this point, light
27:57
Speaker 1: represents hope, and so he just started crawling towards the
28:00
Speaker 1: light and he managed to go up and over all
28:02
Speaker 1: this debris and finally he gets to this clearing where
28:05
Speaker 1: this light is, and it turns out the light was
28:07
Speaker 1: a flashlight held by a fireman who had also survived
28:11
Speaker 1: the collapse of the South tower, and so Michael crawls
28:13
Speaker 1: over right near the sky and realizes he can stand up.
28:16
Speaker 2: There's enough clearance.
28:17
Speaker 1: He stands up, and he looks at this spireman, who's
28:19
Speaker 1: this big guy with a mustache.
28:21
Speaker 2: And Michael says to him, what are we gonna do now?
28:23
Speaker 1: And so this fireman apparently was remarkably composed, and he
28:26
Speaker 1: doesn't really say much to Michael.
28:28
Speaker 2: Instead, he just pulls his axe off his shoulder.
28:30
Speaker 1: And kind of gestures for Michael to follow him, and
28:32
Speaker 1: so Michael naturally follows the fireman, and so he leads
28:35
Speaker 1: them over to this wall, and the fireman reaches out
28:38
Speaker 1: and he rubs the wall with his glove and he
28:40
Speaker 1: rubs away a lot of soot and dirt to reveal
28:43
Speaker 1: a glass window. And so he tells Michael to stand back,
28:46
Speaker 1: and the fireman winds up and he smashes this window.
28:48
Speaker 1: And on the other side of this window is this
28:51
Speaker 1: Border's bookstore. And in the middle of this Border's bookstore
28:54
Speaker 1: is a staircase that goes up to the main floor
28:57
Speaker 1: and out onto the street. And so Michael thanks this
28:59
Speaker 1: fireman and then climbed through this opening into this bookstore,
29:03
Speaker 1: and as he was climbing through, he looked back towards
29:05
Speaker 1: the rubble and he saw there were lots of other
29:07
Speaker 1: people that were crawling out of the rubble and were
29:10
Speaker 1: getting in line to also climb into the bookstore. And
29:13
Speaker 1: so Michael, once he was through, he waited for a
29:15
Speaker 1: few people and then they together ran to the staircase.
29:17
Speaker 1: They went up to the first floor, and they went
29:19
Speaker 1: out to the street. And when they got out there,
29:21
Speaker 1: it was like the apocalypse. There was that white dust
29:24
Speaker 1: over everything, over people, cars, buildings, everything.
29:27
Speaker 2: They could barely see in front of.
29:29
Speaker 1: Them, and so Michael just reflexively began running away from
29:33
Speaker 1: the towers. And as he's running, he sees there's this
29:35
Speaker 1: woman just standing in the road and she's weeping, and
29:38
Speaker 1: Michael goes up to her and he says, he you okay,
29:39
Speaker 1: can I help you? And she is totally non responsive,
29:42
Speaker 1: and so eventually Michael just leaves her and keeps on running,
29:45
Speaker 1: and after a couple of seconds he sees there's this
29:47
Speaker 1: overturned food cart on the side of the road, so
29:49
Speaker 1: there's no one nearby.
29:50
Speaker 2: He runs over. He gets two iced teas out of
29:52
Speaker 2: the cooler.
29:53
Speaker 1: He opens one and pours it over his face to
29:55
Speaker 1: kind of clear his face off, and then he pours
29:57
Speaker 1: some into his mouth to wash his mouth out, and
29:59
Speaker 1: then he just keeps on running. And again everything around
30:02
Speaker 1: him is just covered in this dust. And so as
30:04
Speaker 1: he's running, he eventually sees there's this cameraman that's got
30:07
Speaker 1: his camera trained in the direction of the towers. But
30:10
Speaker 1: the cameraman is not using his camera. Instead, he's hunched
30:13
Speaker 1: over his camera and he's just weeping, like he can't
30:16
Speaker 1: even report the news. And so Michael just kept on
30:18
Speaker 1: running and running, and at some point he heard another
30:21
Speaker 1: very loud, cracking sound behind him, but he.
30:24
Speaker 2: Didn't even turn around. He just kept on running.
30:26
Speaker 1: And it would turn out it was the sound of
30:28
Speaker 1: his tower, the North tower, collapsing as well, and just
30:32
Speaker 1: like the South Tower, there were hundreds of people.
30:34
Speaker 2: Inside it when it fell.
30:35
Speaker 1: And so Michael would eventually just continue running until he
30:38
Speaker 1: reached New York University NYU. That was where his brother
30:41
Speaker 1: was working, and he hoped he would be there so
30:43
Speaker 1: he could tell him that he survived, that he was okay.
30:46
Speaker 2: But when he got to NYU, his brother wasn't there.
30:48
Speaker 1: However, there were staff people there that saw how horrible
30:51
Speaker 1: Michael looked.
30:52
Speaker 2: He was covered head to toe in the dust.
30:53
Speaker 1: He looked crazed, he had blood all over him, and
30:56
Speaker 1: so they took him in. They cleaned him up, and
30:57
Speaker 1: they gave him a phone, and he was able to
30:59
Speaker 1: get in touch with his wife, and he.
31:01
Speaker 2: Told her that he was okay.
31:02
Speaker 1: And his wife and his entire family, they were convinced
31:05
Speaker 1: he was dead. They had been watching on TV. They
31:08
Speaker 1: had seen the tower collapse. They knew he was up
31:10
Speaker 1: on the eighty first floor, and so they really believed
31:13
Speaker 1: he was dead.
31:13
Speaker 2: But unbelievably, he survived.
31:16
Speaker 1: Michael would ultimately make a full physical recovery, although he
31:19
Speaker 1: would have to have several surgeries to remove the one
31:22
Speaker 1: hundred and forty seven pieces of fiberglass that had embedded
31:26
Speaker 1: in his eyes, because when the tower collapse and all
31:28
Speaker 1: that dust and soot got pushed into his mouth and
31:31
Speaker 1: his ears and his nose and his eyes, there were
31:32
Speaker 1: little pieces of fiberglass that basically turned into splinters on
31:35
Speaker 1: his eyes. Like most other nine to eleven survivors, Michael
31:39
Speaker 1: thinks to himself, you know, why me, Why did I
31:41
Speaker 1: survive when so many other people didn't? But Michael tries
31:44
Speaker 1: not to dwell on that. Instead, he focuses on trying
31:47
Speaker 1: to honor the memories of the people they lost, and
31:50
Speaker 1: he focuses on trying to be the best father to
31:52
Speaker 1: his sons he can possibly be.
31:53
Speaker 2: So that's going to do it, guys.
31:55
Speaker 1: Before you leave, please go into the description of this
31:58
Speaker 1: video and check out the links to the charities I've provided.
32:01
Speaker 1: These are extremely highly rated charities that are still providing
32:05
Speaker 1: support to nine to eleven victims, their families, and first responders.
32:09
Speaker 1: Even though it's been twenty years, the ripple effects of
32:12
Speaker 1: this attack are still felt today by lots of people,
32:15
Speaker 1: and so these charities I've identified are a way to
32:18
Speaker 1: support people that really need it, and so I have
32:20
Speaker 1: already donated to all of the charities listed. So I'm
32:23
Speaker 1: telling you these are incredible organizations. They are worth giving
32:27
Speaker 1: your money too. And so that's going to do it, guys.
32:29
Speaker 1: Until next time, see you