Connect with us

Published

on

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
Image:
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.

HOLD FOR STORY FILE - In this Sept. 11, 2001, file photo, smoke billows from one of the towers of the World Trade Center and flames as debris explodes from the second tower in New York. Family members of 9/11 families and others harmed in the terrorist attacks are on a fresh quest to hold Saudi Arabia responsible. A magistrate judge presiding over a Thursday, March 23, 2017, hearing says she hopes to streamline the legal process to speed the lawsuits along. (AP Photo/Chao Soi Cheong, File)
Image:
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
Image:
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
Image:
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 Manning pictured with her husband Greg and their two sons Jagger and Tyler. Pic: Lauren Manning
Image:
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
Image:
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
Image:
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
Image:
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.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

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
Image:
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’

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

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.

Subscribe to StoryCast ’21 now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Spreaker

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.”

Continue Reading

US

Putin criticises Trump’s sanctions on oil firms – as Russian jets ‘briefly enter NATO airspace’

Published

on

By

Putin criticises Trump's sanctions on oil firms - as Russian jets 'briefly enter NATO airspace'

Vladimir Putin has described Donald Trump’s sanctions against two major oil firms as an “unfriendly act”.

However, the Russian president has insisted the tightened restrictions won’t affect the nation’s economy, a claim widely contradicted by most analysts.

In a major policy shift, Mr Trump imposed sanctions against Rosneft and Lukoil – Russia’s biggest oil companies – on Wednesday.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Will US sanctions on Russian oil hurt the Kremlin?

The White House said this was because of “Russia’s lack of serious commitment to a peace process to end the war in Ukraine”.

Putin has now warned the move could disrupt the global oil markets, and lead to higher prices for consumers worldwide.

A meeting between the two leaders had been proposed in Budapest, but Mr Trump said he had decided to cancel the talks because “it didn’t feel right to me”.

Speaking from the Oval Office, he had told reporters: “I have good conversations. And then, they don’t go anywhere. They just don’t go anywhere.”

More on Donald Trump

Giving a speech in Moscow yesterday, Putin said “dialogue is always better than war” – but warned that Russia will never bow to pressure from abroad.

Earlier, his long-term ally Dmitry Medvedev had described Mr Trump as a “talkative peacemaker” who had now “fully embarked on the warpath against Russia”.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Why did Trump sanction Russian oil?

Oil prices have witnessed a sizeable jump since the sanctions were announced, with Brent crude rising by 5% – the biggest daily percentage gains since the middle of June.

In other developments, Lithuania has claimed that two Russian military aircraft briefly entered its airspace yesterday.

A Su-30 fighter and Il-78 refuelling tanker were in the NATO member’s territory for 18 seconds, and Spanish jets were scrambled in response to the incident.

Russia’s defence ministry denied this – and said its planes did not violate the borders of any other country during a “training flight” in the Kaliningrad region.

Read more:
Sanctions could have chilling effect on market

How could new sanctions impact the UK?

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Zelenskyy tells Sky News ‘ceasefire is still possible’

Volodymyr Zelenskyy attended a European Council summit in Brussels to discuss the war in Ukraine – and said the meeting had delivered “good results”.

He said Ukraine had secured political support for frozen Russian assets and “their maximum use” to defend against Russian aggression, adding the EU would “work out all the necessary details”.

Mr Zelenskyy thanked the bloc for approving its 19th sanctions package against Russia earlier today, and work was already beginning on a 20th.

European leaders are going to arrive in London later today for a “critical” meeting of the “Coalition of the Willing” – with the goal of discussing “how they can pile pressure on Putin as he continues to kill innocent civilians with indiscriminate attacks across Ukraine”.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

How will the Russian oil sanctions affect petrol costs?

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said: “The only person involved in this conflict who does not want to stop the war is President Putin, and his depraved strikes on young children in a nursery this week make that crystal clear.

“Time and again we offer Putin the chance to end his needless invasion, to stop the killing and recall his troops, but he repeatedly rejects those proposals and any chance of peace.

“From the battlefield to the global markets, as Putin continues to commit atrocities in Ukraine we must ratchet up the pressure on Russia and build on President Trump’s decisive action.”

Continue Reading

US

Trump’s sanctions are no slap on the wrist – they’re a punch to the gut of Moscow’s war economy

Published

on

By

Trump's sanctions are no slap on the wrist - they're a punch to the gut of Moscow's war economy

The new US sanctions are no slap on the wrist – they’re a punch to the gut of Moscow’s war economy.

Oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil are the twin engines pumping money through Russia’s military veins.

Washington framed the bold move as a bid to “degrade the Kremlin’s ability to raise revenue for its war machine”.

Oil is Russia’s bloodstream, and the Trump Treasury just cut off the blood flow.

But every blow struck in the ring comes with the risk of self-inflicted pain, and there’s potential for collateral damage.

By squeezing Russia’s oil sector, the president is tightening the global market’s chest – and America’s own pump could feel the pressure.

The White House is gambling that the geopolitical payoff will ultimately outweigh the domestic sting.

More on Donald Trump

Pic: AP
Image:
Pic: AP

“These are tremendous sanctions and I hope they don’t last long,” Mr Trump said.

That mix of swagger and caveat summed up his approach – maximum pressure, but with an eye on prices back home.

Europe rushed to mirror Washington’s stance, adding restrictions on imports and tightening loopholes in shipping.

The EU was clearly signalling that it’s in Trump’s corner, that the Western alliance holds.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Trump: Putin summit ‘didn’t feel right’

‘Wasted journey’

On both sides of the Atlantic, they know that Moscow will seize on any disunity and slip through the cracks.

An Oval Office meeting with the NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte provided the diplomatic stagecraft.

Mr Trump repeated that he’d cancelled a planned summit with Vladimir Putin because he “didn’t want to have a wasted journey”.

Mr Rutte played the part of loyal ally, twice labelling the US president “the only one who can get this done”.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

NATO chief: Trump-Zelenskyy meeting not a disaster

Earlier, Mr Rutte played down my suggestion that his visit indicated Trump’s meeting with Zelensky last Friday had been a disaster.

It wouldn’t be the first time Mr Rutte, who famously referred to Mr Trump as “Daddy”, has poured oil on troubled waters.

But it’s Moscow’s apparent refusal to accept Trump’s terms that has put plans for another summit with Putin on hold.

China’s diplomatic influence with Russia could give it some leverage when Mr Trump meets Xi Jinping for trade talks next week.

The US president’s sanctions are more than punishment – they’re a strategic gamble to corner Putin – but the margin of error is razor thin.

If energy prices surge or allied unity splinters, Mr Trump could find himself on the ropes.

Continue Reading

US

Entire East Wing of White House will be demolished for ballroom – as Trump urged to pause project

Published

on

By

Entire East Wing of White House will be demolished for ballroom - as Trump urged to pause project

The entire East Wing of the White House will be demolished “within days” – much more bulldozing than initially expected for Donald Trump’s new ballroom construction project.

Two Trump administration officials told Sky News’ US partner NBC that the demolition is a significant expansion of the initial plans announced this summer.

“It won’t interfere with the current building,” Mr Trump had said on 31 July. “It’ll be near it, but not touching it, and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of.”

Rubble is piled higher and higher as demolition continues on the East Wing. Pic: AP
Image:
Rubble is piled higher and higher as demolition continues on the East Wing. Pic: AP

But a White House official told NBC News the “entirety” of the East Wing would eventually be “modernised and rebuilt”.

“The scope and the size of the ballroom project have always been subject to vary as the process develops,” the official added.

The East Wing was built at the beginning of the last century and was last modified in 1942.

Explainer: How Trump has changed the White House while in power

More from US

Trump shows off an artist's impressions of his new ballroom. Pic:AP
Image:
Trump shows off an artist’s impressions of his new ballroom. Pic:AP

Construction on the ballroom – which is expected to hold up to 900 people when finished – began this week.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a non-profit agency created by Congress to help preserve historic buildings, warned administration officials in a letter on Tuesday that the planned ballroom “will overwhelm the White House itself”.

“We respectfully urge the administration and the National Park Service (stewards of the White House) to pause demolition until plans for the proposed ballroom go through the legally required public review processes,” Carol Quillen, the trust’s chief executive, said in a statement.

Windows of the complex could be seen being torn down. Pic: Reuters
Image:
Windows of the complex could be seen being torn down. Pic: Reuters

‘Fake news’

The White House called the uproar “manufactured outrage” by “unhinged leftists and their fake news allies” in a statement.

Last week, Mr Trump said the total price would be about $250m (£187m), which would be paid for by himself and private donors will pay for. However, on Wednesday, he said the ballroom’s price is “about $300m (£225m)”.

The 90,000 sq ft ballroom will dwarf the White House itself – and would be able to accommodate almost five times more guests than the East Room, the largest current space in the mansion.

Mr Trump says the ballroom won’t cost US taxpayers at all. Instead, “donors” would pay for it.

Comcast, the parent company of Sky News, was included on a list of top donors released last week – but it is unclear how much it or others have contributed.

Continue Reading

Trending