New York Daily News photojournalist David Handschuh was taking pictures near the South Tower when it collapsed, throwing him half a block and shattering his leg. One of his rescuers is still unidentified.
» Subscribe to NBC News:
» Watch more NBC video:
NBC News is a leading source of global news and information. Here you will find clips from NBC Nightly News, Meet The Press, and our original series Debunker, Flashback, Nerdwatch, and Show Me. Subscribe to our channel for news stories, technology, politics, health, entertainment, science, business, and exclusive NBC investigations.
Connect with NBC News Online!
Visit NBCNews.Com:
Find NBC News on Facebook:
Follow NBC News on Twitter:
Follow NBC News on Google+:
Follow NBC News on Instagram:
Follow NBC News on Pinterest:
Photojournalist Survived Close Call with South Tower Collapse on 9/11 | NBC News
source
46 Comments
Obama and the Jews was responsible
I've been watching a lot of 9/11 videos when I came across this one and wondered if the mystery fireman might be Mike Meldrum from Ladder 6…the man in the picture looks like a young Mike…
NBC, did you ever find the firefighter and officer that helped David?
2:00 the sort of photos the modern media desperately doesn’t want you to see
That unidentified fireman instantly made me think of a security gaurd at madison square garden when I was there for a rangers game this past december 2022. Exact same eyes cut right through me. Probably completely unrelated but instantly made me think of him.
(0:34–0:35) Man in the blue button down shirt carrying the stretcher with the firemen was my father. Seeing this now in 2023 is surreal. He heard about what was going on and showed up to pull people out of the buildings. He wasn’t working and had no equipment. Thankfully he came home mostly unscathed. This video is very moving.
click on my button down here 4:42
This is a matter of retribution, but we all want to believe that the damage done to our country is tragic.
He heared the voice of an angel on that moment. Dont worry will get you out brother ❤ if everyone were like this there would be world peace
The man holding an office chair over his head, likely from an office within the towers just used minutes before by someone doing their work, using it as cover from falling debris is crazy to think about
there's something eerie about just how clear that day in September was….it was as if God himself was reminding us that even here, in the United States of America, even we are vulnerable
A huge amount of respect to the news anchors, photographers from that day because as awful as it was we needed these videos and photos 🙂 xxx
2:25 Ron Clifford is the man with the yellow tie aiding the burned Jennieann away from the lobby of the Marriott hotel. Ron would later discover his sister & niece, Ruth & Juliana, were killed aboard UA175 enroute from Boston to LA to visit Disneyland. Jennieann would later die in hospital & Ron laid his yellow tie at her bedside. Just devastating tragedy amidst some of the survivor stories.
People who watched from there TV or not as close always says how they never saw the other side of the plane go through the tower but it did as well as desk computers human bodys remains and tvs it was just so fast and unrecognizable to anyone who was actually there when it happened
Another photographer named Bill Biggart wasn't so lucky he didn't even work in the World Trade Center Twin Towers he was a journalist/photographer who ran to the scene as any other would he would be the person who took the photo of the marriott after the South tower collapsed and remained at the scene as his wife was tryna to get him to see the severity of what was transpiring around them and he was Killed when the North Tower Collapsed minutes after the picture he snapped was taken
God is great
🙏
😲🥺😱 I was about to comment when I was on the first minute and he reported, that he was following the Rescue 1 fire engine in which 11 firefighters were sitting, and that ALL 11 firefighters died on the 11th, when I was shocked to find that the comment section contained exactly 666 (!!!) comments at that moment…
Coincidence❓I don't think so…😱
This has to be a sign…
My PTSD from 9/11 was SO BAD I couldn't even go south of Canal St. for YEARS & YEARS. Brooklyn was CLOSE ENOUGH for me. At the time of 9/11, I worked in the Hudson Square area on the lower West Side of Manhattan, which was only about 13 blocks north of where the WTC had been.
I'm just glad I was still at home in Brooklyn, and that I hadn't left for work yet, or I would have been stuck in the subway, when I think about how much worse and chaotic it COULD have been, I'm just glad I wasn't in Manhattan. 😱
When I went back to work six days after the attacks on September 17th, my office was FULL of dust and ash and had some smoke damage. Fortunately, I didn't lose any family or friends in the attacks.
One of my childhood friends who worked at Merrill Lynch in the South Tower was late catching her ferry into work from Staten Island on that morning. My graduate seminar at NYU was also cancelled that morning, so I'd decided to just go into work earlier, and had just called in to let them know I'd be in around 11am (instead of my usual 1pm arrival time) which was my arrival time on those days I either didn't have seminars; or it was a case of it being canceled, as it was on 9/11.
In retrospect, a LOT of things happened on that fateful morning to keep me safe, that's when I truly started to believe in a higher protective power in the universe. I didn't become a bible-thumper or a Jesus freak, (I'm a ✡️) but 9/11 shifted a LOT of my ideas about what faith is and a higher universal power. I called into work at around 8:30am. Therefore, I was in the shower when American 11 hit the North Tower @ 8:46am, so I didn't hear it or see it, because I didn't have the TV turned on yet either.
I got out of the shower about 8:50am-ish and turned on the TV, and Good Day NY was broadcasting about the North Tower being hit.
At the time, I lived in Brooklyn, and I was able to see the smoke rising up over the roof tops in my neighborhood from the direction of lower Manhattan, when I went and stood at the window. I was having a great deal of difficulty in connecting and reconciling the events happening on TV with what I saw outside my window, it was the MOST surreal feeling, utterly horrible and terrifying. I could feel the panic and terror rising up in me, and was really fighting to remain calm, but it was as if my body and 🧠 were suddenly fighting each other to retain my rationale.
Then, at 9:03am, I heard a muted rumbling boom that echoed out over the city. More smoke now, heavier darker smoke began to rise up from the direction of lower Manhattan; I ran back to the TV.
What I'd heard was United 175 hitting the South Tower. At that point, I KNEW it was a terrorist attack and that they were finishing up what they'd started back in 1993.
I'd been in NYC during the 1993 bombing also, stuck up at Hunter College on the upper east side of Manhattan (where I was attending classes at that time) and it took me FOREVER to get home to Brooklyn that day because public transit had been impacted that day also.
All I remember is the feelings of helplessness, vulnerability, terror and panic when I fully realized what was happening and why. I literally didn't go outside again (except to walk my 🐕) until I went back to work when it was deemed safe enough to the following week.
I was TOO scared to leave my house because (and a LOT of New Yorkers felt this way as it turned out) I kept thinking: "what will they attack next?" NYC is FULL of 🎯's, so that's what was so terrifying about it.
Then American 77 hit the Pentagon and that just made it all worse, and then I heard the distant muted roar and rumble of the South Tower collapsing outside my window (while seeing it simultaneously on TV), and that was the WORST and MOST surreal thing EVER.
THEN, United 93 crashed in Shanksville, PA, just a few minutes after the South Tower collapsed, and then my TV cut out at 10:30am when the North Tower collapsed. It was like a series of concussive shocks had been issued to my body. I passed out, and didn't come to to until my dog woke me up by kissing/pawing at me and whining. She DEFINITELY knew something was up.
It was just the MOST SURREAL & HORRIFIC day EVER.
I was born in 2005, 4 years after it had happened and part of me almost wishes to witness it as it unfolded just to feel how intense and terrible that day was, there’s only so much that pictures and video and artifacts can tell you but if you were actually there…that feeling would be ingrained into your body
I remember it vividly I was a 5th grader alllll the way in Michigan Detroit to be exact the classroom had just settled from the morning and everyone coming in and all of a sudden we all had to go down to the dance room and we seen it on the news/ mtv live I couldn’t process it until seen fellow classmates crying because of family working there out of town it then begin to get real and they had to “evacuate all our fellow Arab/ students out first on the bud cause they didn’t live close to the school and then we all had to call our parents R.I.P to my granddad but him and my mom came to pick me up the school grounds were covered in people very very sad day
May peace be with him and all those affected!
What an emotional story 🥲 this man is so lucky to still be alive
Never forgotten one love ❤
Aw omg 🙁
20 years now, and its haunting. My condolences for all the families who lost people and the people who were lost.
The twin towers are fall
To me the part of the woman carrying her heels in her hands and running barefoot on the glass shards is something that I had never imagined, that must be so painful, and having to choose between that extreme pain or having the minimal protection of your shoes but not being able to run, 5H1T I wish I was there to carry her on my arms.
His rescued is Sgt Chetalonia nypd
1 person survived from engine 1
"all just wanned to survirve" im so beyond broken by that
in another interview he said something on the line of “this is a tragedy, i can’t photograph this, but this is history, i HAVE to photograph this”
The woman wrapped in white from 2:24 – 2:29 is named Jennieann Maffeo, a 40-year old from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. She was on her way to work at UBS PaineWebber in New Jersey on the morning of September 11, waiting for a bus in front of the World Trade Center when the first plane struck the North Tower. When it hit, she was doused with burning jet fuel that instantly burned her clothes off and melted her clothing zippers and hair into her skin. Over 90% of her body was severely burned, and the first person to approach her was the man on her right in the yellow tie.
His name is Ron Clifford, and he’s originally from Ireland. He was in the lobby of the Marriott that sat in between the two towers, which also became rubble that day, waiting to attend a job interview. He’s wearing that yellow tie at the advice of his sister, Ruth. They had spoken early that morning, and she told him to wear a bright tie so he would stand out at his interview. So he did.
As they ran away from the ensuing chaos and horror, Ron had no idea that a second plane was headed for the South tower, United Airline 175, barreling towards doom at 586 miles per hour, and it contained his sister, Ruth, and her 4-year old daughter, Juliana. They were headed to LA on a nonstop flight from Boston to go to Disneyland with Ruth’s best friend, who happened to end up on a different airplane that day… the one that hit the North Tower, American Airlines flight 11.
Jennieann wasn’t expected to make it more than 36 hours with the extent of her trauma, but she held on for 41 days before succumbing to her injuries on October 22, 2001.
Deepest condolences always to anyone who has been touched by the events of 9/11. We indeed will never forget.
Gosh. God did something for me and my friend. I was still awake at 5 am watching 9/11 and my best friend showed me a message his sister sent about jesus etc. And then we started having a deep conversation about 9/11, about the falling man, and about what we would do if we were inside the buildings. And we both said simular things. Like we would both be terrified but we would try to find a way out. If we cant, we reach out to each other and give each other the biggest hug. And as we hear noises from everywhere and the building collapsing and we see our lives flashing before our eyes right before we go. But i think that near him i'd feel no fear. I'd feel calm. I think it was a very beautiful way to die if it was with him. It wasnt a happy talk but it was because we could feel so much energy, spirituality, and love in our talk. It doesnt matter if u have witnessed it or not it can still hit a person hecking deep because its still fresh. And the energy from that experience will always remain. With the video's too. So we will feel it. Everyone does. Me and my friend grew a lot closer after this talk
😔
That guy with the yellow tie on helping the burnt woman is Ron Clifford he was an Irish guy staying at the Marriott In the WTC, It turns out his sister and his niece were actually on the plane that hit the second tower, the man witnessed his sister and his nieces death and didn’t even know it, horrific stuff.
Angel
A very sincere story. His words of thanks are spoken not only for himself but for so many more.
David Handschuh – when I look at "the other fireman," in the photo of the firemen carrying you, his visage brings to my mind, "Do you believe in Angels?"
Did they ever find out who that guy was?
I'm back again it's the 20th anniversary! I'm thinking about all of you rest in peace you're in my heart 💜
I was driving to my job in NJ. I stopped listening to the car radio months before. Nothing but bad news I thought. I was listening to Bob Marley's Redemption Songs. I stopped in the parking lot to have a cigarette. I remember thinking how blue the sky was and who wants to go to work on such a beautiful day? I noticed how quiet it was. I didn't hear the usual traffic in the street or the birds singing their morning song. I thought something's not right. I went inside to start the day and turned on the radio to listen to our ad spots running. The man talking sounded really hectic and I could hear sirens. Than he said another plane has hit the World Trade south tower. I thought : ANOTHER PLANE!!? How can that be when the sky is so clear? In that moment I realized this is not an accident! Twenty years later, it's still hard to believe.
😭
NBC NEWS!!
Wow I love this ❣️
I worked at North Shore University Hospital on Long Island in Manhasset, NY (some 20 miles from Manhattan) at the time of the attack. I was not scheduled to work that night, but volunteered to come in, and thank goodness I had my hospital ID badge to get through the police line on the way there that evening (I usually just left it at work in my locker). Everyone in the entire hospital was awaiting the arrival of loads of injured victims. But they never came. Not even one.