20 years after the attacks of the Twin Towers, the trauma and the pain that does not stop

In the middle of tomorrow that Tuesday, September 11, 2001, the atmosphere immediately thickened, the first explosion was in the blink of an eye and the immense blanket of smoke was even visible from space.

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For Wright, an account executive who worked on the 81st floor of the North Tower, it was “a mundane morning” and he was about to see customers and make sales calls.

When American Airlines Flight 11 crashed with 92 people on board between the 93rd and 99th floors of the North TowerWright was making jokes with his co-workers because his company had started sharing an apartment with Bank of America. A few minutes later, Wright was running down the stairs to save his life.

The North Tower of the World Trade Center (WTC), Al Qaeda’s first target that day, fell into ruins at 10:28 a.m., after being set on fire for just over an hour and 40 minutes..

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Wright could only measure gravity when he reached the first floor: “I saw corpses everywhere, and none were intact. As I was running, people were coming out of another staircase. I stopped and shouted, “Don’t look outside! The windows were stained with blood. Someone had jumped and fell very close to the building. My head felt like it was going to explode. “

David English now lives in Mendoza, but on September 11, 2001, he left his office, which was next to the WTC, with a key contract to be signed with City Bank. However, his fate changed when, from the elevator of his apartment building, he thought he saw a small plane attacking the North Tower.

“I saw papers fall, ash, a hole in the tower and smoke, but at that time it was not so much. I went to a phone booth and called my dad to let him know I was okay. In a few seconds a second plane passed over me and I saw it explode“, he told Telam.

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For Englishman, one of the most impressive things was the smell that permeated every space, as an inevitable reminder to those who were in the city.

“I lived on the other side of the Hudson River and from my apartment I smelled too much of all the smell of this poisonous well, a mixture between the smell of an electric fire and 3,000 deaths, horrible. My decision to moving to Argentina was immediate. Living with the tragedy on your face was unbearable“he recalled.

By this time, the air had thickened enough to prevent the occupants of the tower from breathing, and smoke filled every square meter of the building. Panic quickly manifested itself in the south tower.

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Until not so long ago, the most terrible images of that day continued to haunt the memory of Spanish chef Javier Ortega.

“Every time I closed my eyes or tried to sleep they were there, it was unbearable. I had them so close I could see them even the color of their ties. They grabbed the ledge and, when they didn’t. couldn’t take it anymore, they drop, ”he said. .

Petrified, Ortega and his wife Devora stood by the window of their apartment, located directly across from the Twin Towers, until they were shaken by the impact of the second plane, this time in the South Tower.

The smell was also part of Ortega’s history.

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Even if his restaurant was about 10 blocks from the WTC, it was not reactivated until January 2002, when the debris stopped smoking and began to disappear “that smell that reached your guts and took away the urge to eat”, Devora graficó, quoted, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the attack, by the digital media El Correo.

The second collision generated further confusion and a roar that sounded like a stampede so loud in the streets that it made those walking near the WTC think they could be crushed to death.

The complex had seven buildings, among them, the two largest in the world: the north tower with 411 meters and the south tower with 409; were known as the twin towers for its appearance and between the two, they housed 376 companies.

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The South Tower was sunk between floors 77 and 85 by United Airlines Flight 175, which was carrying 65 people. The attack, which occurred just 15 minutes after 9 a.m., was broadcast live around the world by television cameras filming the area.

At the time of the first bang, Canadian broker Ron DiFrancesco, who worked on the 84th floor of the South Tower, began to descend the stairs. He didn’t have time to feel or think.

“When leaving the operating room, the second plane crashed into our tower. The smell of smoke and dust was very strong,” he told Telam, and recalled that for 14 floors a calm voice guided him on the exact path to stay alive. .

“I couldn’t escape from the tower. I was in the basement of the WTC when it fell. I ran for the exit and they knocked me out. The firefighters rescued me and took me to the hospital, ”reconstituted Ron Di Francesco, who has returned to Canada and now works in a consulting firm that promotes happy organizations.

“We all have our struggles, some more difficult than others. I am grateful to be alive and to tell my story in the hope that it will help others.”

To integrate

Two days after the attack, the Argentine journalist Gabriel Giubellino took one of the first planes for New York, as soon as flights resumed and while “the towers were still releasing energy”, he described Telam .

What Giubellino saw that day was a “raw city”.

“The most impressive thing was the American spirit and this patriotic speech. There were memorials, pictures of victims with flowers and tributes everywhere, but the clubs were also open. The idea that they had to continue. with the lifestyle they had prevailed, they were not going to allow their freedom or their consumerism to be limited, ”he added.