Thread by @robertanglen

Today is for remembrance. On Sept. 11, 2001, I discovered hell and abandoned God. My experience at Ground Zero was minor compared to the sacrifice, pain, loss and trauma of thousands of people. I was a witness. #neverforget THREAD.

As such, I feel a duty to share. To tell the story of what I saw. As we get farther away from the event in time, I refuse to remove myself from that day. It’s how I deal. It’s all I’ve got.

So, today I’m sharing some of the photos I took during the first 24 hours at Ground Zero. This was before digital photos. I was armed with a couple rolls of film, a point-and-shoot and a notebook.

I was a reporter for The Cincinnati Enquirer. But I wasn’t supposed to be working. I was on vacation with my wife, our first time in NYC.

My wife’s a nurse. While I went toward the WTC, she walked to different hospitals. To volunteer. Ar least one Hospital had a triage unit set up on the street. But there were no injured patients on the stretchers.. There weren’t mass injuries that day, simply dead or alive.

When the first tower collapsed I was in Greenwich Village. I was running toward the Twin Towers when it vaporized. People just dropped to their knees in the street. Someone shouted, “it’s gone.”

The realization of what happened was like a wire in the blood. I knew I had to get closer. As people ran from the area, I ran toward the remaining tower.

That’s where I first met survivors. Two maintenance workers, covered in blood and ash, told me they were working in the basement of WTC when elevators started dropping from above. On fire. The workers tried to rescue people. They said a man’s arms fell off in their hands.

As I got closer, you could hear concussive thumps. I wasn’t close enough to see exactly what was happening. I asked a firefighter if it was gas explosions. He said it was people. Jumping.

This is when a man stopped me. A Federal Express worker. He was hyperventilating with fear. He wanted help. His wife worked on the top floor of WTC. He needed to find her.

I pulled him over to a cop, standing in the street with his back to us. I tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around, screaming that his friends were dead. There was no help.

I tried to tell the Federal Express worker that his wife made it out, that she was OK. I learned a year later, while working on a one-year anniversary story, that she died. It haunts me that I never got their names. Could never say sorry. I left him there.

When the second tower fell, I was just blocks away. I took shelter in a storefront as the debris cloud chewed through streets.

I spent the next week at Ground Zero, writing first hand accounts. In many ways, the second, third and fourth days were worse. As the recovery effort began.

I saw dog teams exhausted and confused by the smell of death. I saw firefighter have a nervous breakdown after finding a decapitated victim. I saw body parts sticking out the ground. I tried to be honest about what I saw, but also tell stories through those doing the work.

I filtered my experience through them.

In a way, I shut myself down. And stayed that way for months. It wasn’t until after Christmas that I suddenly broke down for no apparent reason. I curled up and cried for what seemed like hours.

I made a commitment to myself that day. That every anniversary of the attacks I would keep sharing. It might seem insignificant, but I consider it an act of contrition. An obligation.

It’s the debt I owe to the dead and their survivors. For being witness to their horror

So, thank you for allowing me to share it with you. END THREAD. #NeverForget