Revisiting "The Falling Man", ten years later. Do you remember this photograph?

8,333
216
Joined
Feb 6, 2011
esq-falling-man-photograph-0911-lg.jpg

Found this interesting. Read the original article, which is great,  a while back and this update was pretty cool. 

Original article from '03:

http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0903-SEP_FALLINGMAN

Do you remember this photograph? In the United States, people have taken pains to banish it from the record of September 11, 2001. The story behind it, though, and the search for the man pictured in it, are our most intimate connection to the horror of that day.


By Tom Junod

Update:

http://www.esquire.com/the-side/feature/the-falling-man-10-years-later-6406030?click=pp
Ten years later, putting the Falling Man to rest.


By Tom Junod

A different angle to 9/11.
 
A lot of disturbing images and video from 9/11. The jumping people were the ones that really got to me though. I don't know why.
 
Originally Posted by CelticsFan9783

A lot of disturbing images and video from 9/11. The jumping people were the ones that really got to me though. I don't know why.
Probably the fact of knowing they would die from such a high fall, scares most people so thats probably why 
ohwell.gif
 
Originally Posted by CelticsFan9783

A lot of disturbing images and video from 9/11. The jumping people were the ones that really got to me though. I don't know why.

This and the voices of the people calling 911 from inside the buildings and the operators telling them their fate. The people were helpless so some just decided to get the inevitable over with faster by jumping 
tired.gif
 
Originally Posted by JayHood23

Originally Posted by CelticsFan9783

A lot of disturbing images and video from 9/11. The jumping people were the ones that really got to me though. I don't know why.
Probably the fact of knowing they would die from such a high fall, scares most people so thats probably why 
ohwell.gif
or just the fact that it was so miserable in there people rather jump and die that stay there and burn to death.  They knew they were dead and only had a choice of which way was their way to go ...
 
Originally Posted by JayHood23

Originally Posted by CelticsFan9783

A lot of disturbing images and video from 9/11. The jumping people were the ones that really got to me though. I don't know why.
Probably the fact of knowing they would die from such a high fall, scares most people so thats probably why 
ohwell.gif
To me it's because they preferred the last breaths of fresh air that would come from jumping out the window/killing themselves then sitting in the building and letting the smoke suffocate them. R.I.P
 
Seeing the people jumping from the building as I stood in my colleges student center on that horrific morning was one of the most heart wrenching things one could watch.
 
i think i heard or read some where that some people die before the hit the ground? like they die from a heart attack or something? is that true?
 
impossible to understand the feelings these people had before jumping.  what a sad decision to make 
frown.gif
 
Originally Posted by YoungTriz

i think i heard or read some where that some people die before the hit the ground? like they die from a heart attack or something? is that true?
I heard that too, not too hard to believe though. They probably go into shock and pass out or have a heart attack which is why their bodies look so limp before impact 
 
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ca-wants-forget-victims-fell-Twin-Towers.html

The 9/11 victims America wants to forget: The 200 jumpers who flung themselves from the Twin Towers who have been 'airbrushed from history'
Spoiler [+]
By Tom Leonard

Last updated at 11:01 AM on 11th September 2011



Almost all of them jumped alone, although eyewitnesses talked of a couple who held hands as they fell.

One woman, in a final act of modesty, appeared to be holding down her skirt. Others tried to make parachutes out of curtains or tablecloths, only to have them wrenched from their grip by the force of their descent.

The fall was said to take about ten seconds. It would vary according to the body position and how long it took to reach terminal velocity — around 125mph in most cases, but if someone fell head down with their body straight, as if in a dive, it could be 200mph.

article-2035720-0043F39C00000258-873_468x490.jpg

Horror: A person falls to their death after jumping from the north tower following the audacious terror strike which shocked the world a decade ago

When they hit the pavement, their bodies were not so much broken as obliterated.

Nothing more graphically spells out the horror of the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers than the grainy pictures of those poor souls frozen in mid-air as they fell to their deaths, tumbling in all manner of positions, after choosing to escape the suffocating smoke and dust, the flames and the steel-bending heat in the highest floors of the World Trade Centre.

And yet, tragically, they are in many ways the forgotten victims of September 11. Even now, nobody knows for certain who they were or exactly how many they numbered. Perhaps worst of all, surprisingly few even want to know.

[h4]More...[/h4]
From the earliest days after the 9/11 attacks, the American establishment and the media showed an overwhelming reluctance to dwell on those who jumped or fell from the Twin Towers.

If this was simply down to qualms at being considered intrusive or voyeuristic when individuals in the most appalling circumstances chose in desperation to die very publicly, it would be understandable.

But there are other, more complicated, reasons. In the aftermath of this attack on America’s sovereign territory — a period of intense patriotism — some considered that to choose to die rather than be killed showed a lack of courage.

And in this country of intense religious fervour, many believe that to be a ‘jumper’ was to choose suicide rather than accept the fate of God — and suicide in whatever circumstances is considered shameful or, indeed, a sin that will send you to Hell.

At the office of the New York chief medical examiner, a spokesman said this week that they did not consider these people ‘jumpers’. She insisted they fell from the 1,350ft tall, 110-floor skyscrapers, for jumping would imply suicide.

‘Jumping indicates a choice, and these people did not have that choice,’ she said. ‘That is why the deaths were ruled homicide, because the actions of other people caused them to die. The force of explosion and the fire behind them forced them out of the windows.’

article-2035720-0DA86B4100000578-903_468x344.jpg

Terror: An estimated 200 people jumped to their deaths to avoid being killed by the fires on 9/11

For those who have discovered that their loved ones may have been among the estimated 200 or more who plunged to their deaths, this uncomfortable official reticence can only compound the suffering they have already endured.

University administrator Jack Gentul cannot possibly imagine his late wife’s torment before she died. Alayne Gentul, mother of two and the 44-year-old vice president of an investment company, was in the South Tower and had gone up to the 97th floor to help evacuate staff after the other tower was hit. In her final moments, she rang Jack to say in labouring breaths that smoke was coming into her room through vents.

‘She said “I’m scared
 
Even though I know it happened, it still feels unreal to me. My cousin died in 9/11, he was of the youngest to die in the buildings... he got out but went back inside to help people. I can't even imagine what the jumpers were feeling. None of it seems like real life. It's like some messed up movie. RIP
frown.gif
 
Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't someone jump from like 50+ stories up and survive? I swear I heard that somewhere
 
came across a youtube vid that was interviewing firefirghters, and you could hear bodies hitting pavement in the background. the sounds just echoed through the hall they were in
tired.gif


RIP
 
Originally Posted by WITNESSkb24

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't someone jump from like 50+ stories up and survive? I swear I heard that somewhere
eyes.gif
 really bruh??

  
 
Back
Top Bottom