Paul Berriff was still alive to tell the story of 11 September 2001, but only because he ran when the south tower came down. The photographer, then working in New York City, said he watched the building peel away and felt his camera leave his hand in slow motion before everything went black.
He is now 80 and living near Northallerton in North Yorkshire, and his account has new weight because he is among thousands of survivors diagnosed with terminal illnesses linked to the long-term effects of that day. That is what gives his memory of the Twin Towers collapse its force now: it is not only a record of what he saw, but a reminder that the attack did not end when the smoke cleared.
Berriff said the first sign was a voice in the office: somebody said a plane had hit the twin towers. He thought it was likely to be a light aircraft or helicopter, so he phoned his wife, who was at their home in Lower Manhattan. She told him about fire engines and people running around, and he headed for the scene with a sound recordist and an assistant producer to document what was happening.
As he approached, he said both towers were on fire. He also saw black dots falling from the sides of each building and realised they were people jumping. At the base of the towers, assistant fire commissioner Steve Gregory was sending firefighters in, and Berriff said he heard a loud explosion to his left just before the top of the south tower began peeling away like a massive umbrella opening.
He said firefighters shouted for everyone to run. Berriff kept looking through the small viewfinder on his camera and saw 250,000 tonnes of metal and girders hurtling toward him. After about two seconds he and sound recordist Lulu started running down the street. Then came the blackout. He was unconscious for about 35 minutes, and while he was out, the second tower also collapsed.
What remains unresolved is not what he saw, but what the day did to him. Berriff has not publicly named the illnesses that now affect him, and that silence matters because it leaves the physical cost of survival partly off the record. For him, the Twin Towers collapse is no longer only an image from a camera lens. It is the moment a life was split in two, and the consequences are still being counted.
