Message #235435

[Crystal Thielkien]

Another man was running with him, and for a moment, the two stopped and stood side by side, taking in the enormity of what they were seeing - human beings jumping to their deaths. Van Why recalls seeing bodies piling up on the ground.

"One of my most vivid memories is looking to my left and I saw this man in a suit falling. Somehow I had thought that if you ever jumped from a high place, you would be dead before you hit the ground.

"But I remember seeing how very much alive he was and I can still see his arms and legs moving as if to brace himself. Fortunately I didn't see him hit."

Some guards shouted for the two men to come to safety through another World Trade Center Building, number 5. They went down a lift and out of the site on to Church Street, from where Van Why saw the second plane hit the South Tower, only 17 minutes after the first.

Pandemonium broke out. Debris was raining down, he says, as he ran towards Fulton Street, at one point falling to the ground.

"People started to run over the top of me and I thought I was going to be trampled to death but I managed to get up. I remember shouting out 'God, save us all!'"

He recalls an African-American woman tripping and being helped to her feet by a businessman. Then he ran past a large man who was lying face down in the street.