‘I was burning alive’: Survivors of 9/11 attacks describe how they narrowly avoided being killed
It’s almost 20 years since the September 11 attacks but for many survivors, the pain and trauma are still raw.
Some were left with life-changing physical injuries, while many still struggle with the mental torment caused by the events of that day.
One of the most severely injured survivors, Lauren Manning, suffered burns to more than 80% of her body.
“By any medical standard, I should have died,” she tells Sky News.
Lauren had just entered the World Trade Center’s North Tower when the first hijacked plane crashed into the building, sending a fireball hurtling down a lift shaft and into the lobby.
The first hijacked plane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center
“There was this incredibly loud, piercing, whistling sound and an instant later I was engulfed in flames,” she says.
“The pain was incalculable, crushing, penetrating deeper and deeper.
“I was burning alive. There are no other words for it.”
As Lauren fought against the flames, she ran outside and across a road before dropping and rolling on a grass embankment where a man tried to help her.
“I didn’t fall down and die in a heap of flames – I struggled against them,” she says.
“I was screaming to him: ‘Get me the hell out of here!'”
As she lay severely injured, Lauren watched in horror as terrorists smashed a second plane into the World Trade Center’s South Tower.
Nearly 3,000 people died in the 9/11 attacks. Pic: AP
She saw people fall from the skyscrapers, knowing that her colleagues from financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald were trapped on the upper floors.
All of the company’s 658 employees in the office on September 11 were killed that day.
On the ground, Lauren – who had previously escaped the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center – managed to find an ambulance but her chances of survival were slim.
“The burns were extraordinary,” she says.
“It burnt 82.5% (of my body), most of it third-degree.
“More than 20% was fourth or fifth degree, which means you lose the muscle or the bone – so various amputations (were needed) on fingers on both hands.”
• ‘I was so afraid my son would not recognise me’
Lauren spent six months in hospital after suffering burns to more than 80% of her body. Pic: Lauren Manning
Lauren was rushed to hospital and eventually placed in an induced coma before being moved to a specialist burns centre.
Over three months while she was in a coma, her husband Greg would read Robert Burns poems and play music from their dating days.
“Perhaps it had an impact on me, knowing I was loved,” she says.
“My parents drove hours and hours expecting me to be dead – and they were there every day.”
Several days after waking from her coma, Lauren’s then one-year-old son Tyler visited her for the first time since the attack.
Lauren was reunited with her son about three months after 9/11 attack. Pic: Lauren Manning
“I was so afraid that he would not recognise me,” she says.
“He came down the hall and there he was walking. A beautiful little soul.
“He did not recognise me at first…. but he came back towards me and he recognised me, I guess through the eyes and the voice.
“That was everything I needed.”
Lauren spent more than six months in hospital but her recovery – which involved several operations – took nearly 10 years.
“You get burned – which is probably the most sadistic form of human torture – and it takes years and years,” she says.
Lauren pictured with her husband Greg and their two sons Jagger and Tyler. Pic: Lauren Manning
Lauren, whose second son Jagger was born in 2009, still has contact numbers listed in her phone for many of her colleagues who died on 11 September 2001.
“The notion of the murders and the terror and the death are never far away,” she adds.
• The fire official who narrowly escaped Twin Tower collapse
Lynn Tierney arrived at the World Trade Center after both planes had hit the Twin Towers.
The deputy commissioner at New York City’s fire department had been due to attend a job interview on the 68th floor of the North Tower that morning – but her plans had been drastically changed by the terror attacks.
Lynn Tierney was a deputy commissioner at New York City Fire Department. Pic: NYC Fire Department
“It was a horrific scene outside,” she says.
“Both towers were burning… it was engulfing the upper floors.
“But in addition to the flames, the worst thing was there were people jumping (from the towers).
“I saw a couple jump with their hands together. That was unbelievable.
“It continued the whole time we were in the lobby. You could hear it. It was a terrible sound.
“I can’t imagine the choice they were faced with. I was just thinking about their families. It was just horrific.”
People watch smoke billow from the Twin Towers. Pic: AP
Lynn had travelled to the scene with 12 firefighters from two different units – all of whom later died during the rescue effort.
She walked into the lobby of the North Tower through a window after the exploding jet fuel had blown out the glass.
But at that point, fire chiefs had already determined they wouldn’t be able to put out the flames.
“The mission became purely rescue, to try to go up and get out as many people as possible,” she says.
Lynn was working to help coordinate the rescue effort from the north side of the North Tower when suddenly the South Tower collapsed.
• ‘The dust was so thick you could almost chew it’
People flee after the collapse of one of the towers. Pic: AP
She says she “ran like hell” and jumped into a loading dock about 80 yards away.
“The dust was so thick you could almost chew it,” she says.
“It was gritty so you couldn’t take a breath up your nose or anything.
“I was having trouble breathing. Everybody was.”
After entering the loading dock, Lynn says a police inspector tried to shield her with his body.
“That’s the only time I thought about dying,” she says.
“I just thought: ‘God, just let it be fast.’ I don’t want to linger in here like a miner for 18 days and be crushed at the same time.”
After getting to safety, Lynn was in New York City Hall when the second tower collapsed, about two blocks away.
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9/11: ‘People decided between burning and jumping’
The force of the building collapse blew the hall’s doors open and as smoke and dust came into the building, Lynn hid in a staircase.
Some 343 firefighters died that day and Lynn wrote about 100 eulogies for the victims.
On one day alone, 23 funerals were held.
“These emotions from 9/11 are always under the surface,” says Lynn, who later became president of the 9/11 Tribute Centre and held the role until 2007.
“You learn to live with it. I call it ‘keeping a bolt in your heart’.
“It’s overwhelming sometimes. The oddest thing for me is I lived through it.
“I can’t believe I got out of there. That’s the biggest surprise.”
• The British trader who felt Twin Tower plane crash
Briton Charlie Gray thought an earthquake had hit New York when he was working in the North Tower on 11 September 2001.
The London-born trader, who was employed by broker firm ICAP, was stood in the office on the 26th floor when the building “shook and moved”.
Charlie Gray escaped the September 11 attacks in New York
Suddenly, he saw debris falling from the upper floors.
“You could see this stuff was really burning,” Charlie tells Sky News.
“We thought it must be something like a bomb.
“Nobody had to tell us. Everybody just headed for the stairs.”
Charlie and his colleagues began walking down the tower but they were slowed down as more and more people entered the stairwell, before they passed three firefighters on the 17th floor.
“As they passed us we heard on their radio another plane has hit the South Tower,” Charlie says.
“It had taken about 17 minutes to get down nine floors.”
• ‘It was like a warzone’
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What is the legacy of 9/11?
Charlie describes the scene outside the World Trade Center as “like a warzone”.
He says he saw body parts on the street and cars that had been destroyed by falling debris.
A “black charred body” landed about 30ft away as he walked to the ferry terminal and he watched 20 people jump from the towers, he says.
“What was their option?” Charlie asks.
“You stand and either die of smoke inhalation, you burn to death, or you take that quick leap and get it over with.”
After boarding a ferry, Charlie “heard a rumble” and watched as the South Tower came down.
“In less than a minute, the dock where we were just standing was a mass of dust and dirt,” he adds.
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Charlie says 20 of his friends were killed that day – including one he saw in the lobby of the North Tower shortly before the first plane struck.
He says a psychiatrist later diagnosed him with a form of PTSD called “guilt disorder”.
“I was having trouble getting my head around why so many people died and I didn’t,” Charlie says.
After moving back to the UK in 2016, he now gives motivational speeches but admits he still sometimes struggles with the emotional toll of 9/11.
“I get a little teary now and again,” he says.
“I think about things and get a little bit upset because it was an awful day.
“It will never go – that monkey will always be on my back.
“But I found talking about it and sharing my experiences with people helped me get through it.”
The US is in “active pursuit” of a third oil tanker near Venezuela in the Caribbean Sea, officials have said.
It comes amid escalation from the Trump administration against Nicolas Maduro’s government, and as the US builds up a naval military presence in the region, including the USS Gerald R Ford aircraft carrier and its support group.
The status of the attempted interception is unclear, according to Sky’s US partner network NBC News, but reports first emerged at around 2.30pm in the UK that the operation was under way.
As it happened: US in ‘active pursuit’ of third vessel
Two officials told NBC News the US Coast Guard was in “active pursuit” of the vessel, which is sanctioned by the US.
One told the outlet it was “a sanctioned dark fleet vessel that is part of Venezuela’s illegal sanctions evasion”.
“It is flying a false flag and under a judicial seizure order,” they said, adding that dark fleet vessels usually do not operate exclusively for one country.
It is understood the vessel is sailing under the name Bella 1, according to British maritime risk management group Vanguard, according to NBC News and Bloomberg.
Sky News has seen Bella 1 is sanctioned by the US government, according to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) website, and has been included on the list since June 2024.
Read more: The real reason for Donald Trump’s Venezuela exploits
One US official told NBC the vessel was sanctioned under the counterterrorism authority for its involvement in the network of Houthi financial facilitator Sa’id al Jamal.
Another US official separately told the New York Times the ship did not submit to being boarded and continued onward.
If successful, it would mark the third such interception near Venezuela in the past two weeks, with a tanker being seized on Saturday and near the start of the month.
Explained: The US-Venezuela crisis
Trump’s ‘blockade’ of tankers
Earlier this week, the US president declared he had ordered the “blockade” of oil tankers into and out of the South American country.
He said the US military would remain in place until Venezuela returns “all of the oil, land, and other assets that they previously stole from us”.
In the social media post following months of escalating tensions in the Caribbean, Donald Trump said Venezuela was surrounded by the “largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America”.
A map showing Venezuelan military facilities
Venezuela’s government has accused Mr Trump of “violating international law, free trade, and the principle of free navigation” with “a reckless and grave threat” against the South American country.
China’s foreign minister Wang Yi later accused the US of “bullying” Venezuela, and said on Wednesday: “China believes the international community understands and supports Venezuela’s position in defending its legitimate rights and interests.”
Washington has also announced sanctions on numerous oil tankers, shipping companies and family members of Mr Maduro.
President Trump has been ramping up pressure on the Maduro regime, accusing it of involvement in the drugs trade.
As part of his efforts, he has also authorised deadly strikes against vessels he claims are trafficking drugs in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.
President Maduro claims Mr Trump is trying to overthrow him with a view to seizing Venezuela’s oil reserves.
Pictures of Donald Trump were included among at least 16 documents that disappeared from the Epstein files released by the Department of Justice (DOJ).
The Democrats from the House Oversight Committee drew attention to the apparent removal of an image showing two printed pictures of Mr Trump in a desk draw.
One picture had Mr Trump standing surrounded by women in bathing suits, while the second appears to be an already known picture – partly obscured – of him, his wife Melania, Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein.
After the Democrats flagged the missing image on Saturday, Sky News went back to the files online and confirmed that it did appear to be missing, despite the fact they downloaded it when the files were initially released on Friday.
List of documents online as of Saturday evening shows a gap where the file ending ‘468’ was
The file ending ‘468’ seen in Sky News’s downloads from Friday
The other photos removed from the trove of documents were almost all nude paintings of women in Epstein’s home.
In a post on X on Sunday, the DOJ said the image including pictures of Mr Trump has since been reposted on to the Epstein Files page.
Sky News has seen that file number 468 is once again listed online. Mr Trump is still visible in the latest version of the image, and there is no immediate difference from the original upload.
As of 9pm on Sunday, ‘468’ was again available on the DOJ website
The DOJ said that “the Southern District of New York flagged an image of President Trump for potential further action to protect victims”.
“Out of an abundance of caution, the Department of Justice temporarily removed the image for further review,” the department added.
“After the review, it was determined there is no evidence that any Epstein victims are depicted in the photograph, and it has been reposted without any alteration or redaction.”
Mr Trump has not commented on the release of the files and has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein’s case.
Questions over heavy redactions
Pic: New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services/Handout via Reuters
Thousands of documents relating to the dead paedophile financier were made public by the DOJ on Friday – hours before a legal deadline following the passing of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Many of the pages were either partially or fully redacted, which the DOJ says is to protect the more than 1,200 victims and their families identified in them.
Some of Epstein’s victims, legal experts and members of the public have questioned whether this is the sole reason for the redactions, while the Oversight Democrats have claimed: “This is a White House cover-up.”
Ashley Rubright, who was abused for several years after meeting Epstein in Palm Beach when she was 15, told Sky News: “Seeing […] completely redacted pages, there’s no way that that’s just to protect the victims’ identities, and there better be a good reason. I just don’t know if we’ll ever know what that is.”
Gloria Allred, a lawyer who has represented some of Epstein’s victims, says she has been told that despite the heavy redactions, some compromising pictures of survivors and their names were left in the files released on Friday.
“We have had to notify the Department of Justice about names that should have been redacted that weren’t redacted,” she told Sky News.
“So this is further trauma to survivors, and apparently also some of the images of some of the survivors appear not to have been redacted, and they are nude or not completely dressed.
“This is a major concern because the law clearly indicates, and the judges have indicated, that the names and any identifying information of the survivors must be redacted.”
Read more:
Epstein victims react to partial release of files
Links between Epstein and the UK revealed in new files
In a letter to the judges overseeing the Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell cases, US attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton acknowledged that a review “of this size and scope is vulnerable to machine error [or] instances of human error”.
He also said the DOJ had opted to redact the faces of women in photographs with Epstein “even where not all the women are known to be victims,” as it was not viewed as practical for the DOJ to identify every person in all the photos.
The methodology has led to some confusion and misled speculation online.
Epstein died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges
Many celebrities and public figures appear with Epstein in the photos published by the DOJ, often included without context.
There is no suggestion that these pictures imply anyone has done anything wrong, and many of those featured in them have denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.
Through its release, the Trump administration has claimed to be the most transparent in history, despite the fact Congress forced their hand by voting to make the files public by 19 December.
But some have been held back, with Todd Blanche, deputy attorney general and a former personal lawyer for Donald Trump, saying more would follow in the coming weeks.
Many Democrats and some Republicans have criticised the partial release as failing to “comply with law,” as have lawyers including Ms Allred.
“So clearly, the law has been violated. And it’s the Department of Justice letting down the survivors once again,” she said.
She labelled the incomplete release of the files a “distraction”, adding: “This is not over, and it won’t be over until we get the truth and transparency for the survivors.”
US
Epstein survivor describes ‘blindness’ around financier – and criticises justice department over files
The earliest publicly known survivor of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse has told Sky News there was a “wilful blindness” about the young women and children around him – as she claimed the US Department of Justice (DoJ) had “broken the law” with the Epstein files.
Warning: This article contains details of sexual assault.
In 1991, Jess Michaels, then a 22-year-old professional dancer, was introduced to Epstein by a roommate who said he had a “fabulous experience” with the financier.
They met twice, with the first meeting being an interview at his office in Madison Avenue for a role as a masseuse.
During their second meeting at Epstein’s penthouse, she said he raped her.
Speaking to Sky News presenter Barbara Serra, Ms Michaels said that while she did not meet anyone else in connection with the convicted sex offender, “the volume of wilful blindness and blatant disregard for the protection of the young women and the children” that were “very obviously around Jeffrey Epstein” was “horrific”.
Three months after her encounter with Epstein, Ms Michaels said she left New York “because of the anxiety and the insomnia”.
Six months after, she said she could “pull a pair of size zero jeans down off of my hips because I was really struggling to even eat properly”, and noted that a friend remembered she “just slept all the time”.
Jess Michaels said Epstein raped her when she was 22 in 1991. Pic: Reuters
‘That didn’t even get us justice’
Speaking almost 35 years after her ordeal and days after the release of thousands of files relating to Epstein, Ms Michaels said her mission now “is that nothing like this happens again and that we change something”.
However, the White House has come under heavy criticism as only a fraction of the files have so far been released, with many heavily redacted and some disappearing after being uploaded.
When asked how she felt about the latest release, Ms Michaels noted that the Epstein Transparency Act, signed by Donald Trump in November, required the DoJ to release all files by 19 December.
“The US Department of Justice has broken the law,” she said. “Blatantly so. So sometimes I hear from people or journalists, ‘so how do you feel? what comes up next?’ I actually don’t care.”
She added the DoJ had “proved the point of why we needed to get an Act of Congress to actually listen to us and try to get justice. And that didn’t even get us justice.”
Ms Michaels later said “it’s not unexpected”, and said it marked the “exact same treatment we have received across five administrations”.
It is important to note that inclusion in the Epstein files does not infer any wrongdoing.
Pic: Reuters
‘What do you expect us to do?’
Ms Michaels said she had been looking for her own statement she made to the FBI about Epstein, and said many survivors “want to hear the FBI tipline recordings because it proves the volume of victims that did come forward that maybe got disregarded”.
In the wake of Epstein’s arrest in 2019, the FBI set up a telephone number for any information on his crimes. However, Ms Michaels said she “initially got disregarded” when she rang.
“When they called back in 2019, the officer said to me, ‘Well, we have to call everyone back, but it was 30 years ago. What do you expect us to do about it now?'”
Ms Michaels said she has not been able to find any information on her call to the FBI in the files released, and said it is “extremely frustrating because we don’t know how to easily search this database”.
She also noted that despite being told her statement was going to be used in Epstein’s ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell’s 2021 sex trafficking trial, “I never heard a word” and that “the lack of statement proves the negligence we’ve been saying all along”.
Ms Michaels is the earliest victim of Epstein to have come forward with her experience.
Epstein died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Read more:
Victims express shock and outrage over incomplete release of files
The links between Epstein and the UK revealed in new files
He did not face prosecution for crimes relating to the sexual abuse of young girls until the 2000s. He was later arrested in Florida on state felony charges of procuring a minor for prostitution and solicitation of a prostitute in 2006.
An FBI investigation also found dozens of women had accused the financier of sexual assault, and it looked likely that the 53-page federal indictment built against him would see him face a lengthy prison sentence.
Epstein instead agreed to a plea deal and was convicted on those state charges, and was sentenced to 18 months in prison and was registered as a sex offender.
Read more: The mysterious life and death of Epstein
At the time of his death, Epstein was being held in custody on charges related to running a sex-trafficking scheme that involved dozens of underage girls.
He had pleaded not guilty and faced up to 45 years in prison if convicted.
Epstein was specifically accused of using his private jet, nicknamed the Lolita Express, to shuttle girls as young as 14 between his lavish residences in New York and Florida between 2002 and 2005.
In a post on X, US attorney general Pam Bondi said the DoJ would “bring charges against anyone involved in the trafficking and exploitation of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims”.
“We reaffirm this commitment, and ask any victim to please come forward with any information pertaining to any individuals who engaged in illicit activity at their expense,” she said.
“We have met with many victims and victims groups, and will continue to do so if more reach out. Please contact myself, DAG Blanche, or the FBI and we will investigate immediately. We believe in the equal standard of justice in this country and will ensure that Justice is served.”
The US deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, said the justice department was continuing to review the remaining Epstein files and was withholding some documents under exemptions meant to protect victims.
“The only redactions being applied to the documents are those required by law – full stop. Consistent with the statute and applicable laws, we are not redacting the names of individuals or politicians unless they are a victim,” the justice department said, quoting Mr Blanche in a post on X.
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