Note: This article does not contain any images or video featuring explicit gore, but it does link to external sites containing such content for the purposes of historical documentation. While not easy to see, I don’t think what happened on 9/11 should be sanitized or white-washed.
Arguably no event has affected American life in the 21st century more than the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The hijacking of four commercial planes by al-Qaeda and subsequent deaths of nearly 3,000 people rocked the United States to its very core, destroying in one day the post-Cold War confidence Americans had as the world’s top superpower.
Observers still intensely debate the legacy of President George W. Bush’s War on Terror and decisions made by subsequent administrations, but few would disagree that 9/11 has continued to leave a lasting impact on the world as a whole. And yet there is now an entire generation which has zero memory of 9/11, as well as decreasing understanding of how much it changed the fabric of American society.
In response to the “Barbenheimer” phenomena this summer, Japanese Twitter users attempted to mock 9/11, only for the attempt to completely backfire as late-gen millennial and zoomer Americans have long grown up on such memes. For these people, 9/11 may as well be little more than a meme itself as they are too far removed from the actual events.
Despite this, new discoveries and relevant stories related to 9/11 are happening on a regular basis. Remains from the World Trade Center are still being identified. The alleged true mastermind behind the attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, is not only alive, he’s still awaiting trial by U.S. authorities. Some believe there could have been a potential fifth plane that was meant to be hijacked, and a video that shows a new angle of the South Tower being hit only resurfaced in 2022.
While all of this is underway, there is an ongoing lost media search for an alleged shock video entitled “LOL SUPERMAN” which may contain graphic footage of victims falling from the World Trade Center and impacting on the pavement below in gruesome fashion. It and other pieces of 9/11 lost media raise ethical questions around what should be made available to the public.
The collision of American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower (1 WTC) at 8:46 a.m. left more than 800 people trapped on the 92nd to 110th floors. All those aboard were killed instantly and the heat of the jet fuel resulted in a surge of fires which spread throughout the building. The horrific scene is illustrated in the photograph Impending Death, which shows scores of office workers crowded near open windows unable to escape the intense heat and suffocating smoke.
What followed was a chilling succession of over 200 people falling, some accidentally pushed, but most having willing chosen to jump to an instant death rather than be burned alive. The unforgettable sounds of bodies hitting the roofs of lower buildings can be heard in the Naudet brothers’ 2002 documentary of the day’s events. It was a decision no human being should ever have to make, and later victim counts would classify the deaths as homicides rather than suicides in reflection of the impossible circ*mstances. While some jumpers have been identified, others such as the anonymous “Falling Man” remain unknown and represent how 9/11 was a tragedy for all Americans.
In contrast to the North Tower, the South Tower (2 WTC) only saw a total of three jumpers due to the impact angle of United Airlines Flight 175 at 9:03 a.m. leaving one stairway intact. This allowed for the seemingly miraculous survival of Canadian businessman Brian Clark and Guyana-born executive Stanley Praimnath, who were both present at or near the site of the plane’s entry point. But coincidences that saved lives happened just as often as those that ended them.
Among the three victims from the South Tower who jumped, one directly hit firefighter Danny Suhr on the street below, killing both instantly. He was the first FDNY casualty of 9/11, with a fellow colleague testifying that Suhr was found “in a circle about eight feet in diameter” and that “everything that used to be inside of him was now outside of him.” A paramedic who witnessed other jumpers stated that “a lot of bodies, bodies came out of the sky . . . We were hit with debris, which turned out to be human remains.”
Incredibly, one 9/11 jumper may have even temporarily survived her fall. Emergency medical specialist Ernest Armstead claims that while putting black tags on bodies that were dead or close to it, he came across one woman who was lucid the entire time and adamant that she was still alive despite being in an extremely mangled state. “Somehow, I guess it was an air draft or something, her fall had been cushioned enough so that she didn't splatter like the others,” Armstead said. “Her right lung, shoulder and head were intact, but from the diaphragm down she was unrecognizable.”
Such descriptions pique the minds of the morbidly curious, but while plenty of oral testimony exists from firemen, policemen, and medical professionals who saw hundreds of bodies firsthand, there is actually very little video footage of 9/11 jumpers hitting the ground.
