Man who survived 9/11 'relives' experience every day

A man who survived the 9/11 attacks after he was pulled from the rubble said survivors relive the experience almost every single day.

Sujo John went to work that morning on the 81st floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Centre.

By the end of that morning, he had escaped one collapsing tower and had been caught in the collapse of another. He was pulled alive from the rubble.

His wife, who worked in the South Tower, had also survived because she was running just two minutes late to get into work that day.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Today with David McCullagh, Mr John said that it was hard to believe it has been 25 years since the attack.

“There was one thing in common … There was this fear of death that was so visibly written on everyone’s face”

“For those of us that experienced the horror of that day, we relive that day almost every single day.

“It’s really hard to believe that it’s been 25 years, but it feels like it just happened recently.

“Many of us, we remember what it felt like that day, we almost sense that heat and feel everything that we felt that day.

“When you look at our world that we live in, it doesn’t matter whether you’re in the US or Ireland, anywhere in the world, the world changed so much. It was a defining moment for those that were alive at that point of time,” he said.

Listen: Sujo John tells how he and his pregnant wife survived the 11 September attacks

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Mr John recalled when the day turned into an “ugly, evil day”.

“At 8.46 that morning when I’m by this fax machine, I hear this incredible explosion and for a moment, the implosion was so loud, we thought our eardrums would burst,” he said.

“This plane had come crashing into our tower, but we thought it was a small commuter plane. We definitely knew a plane had hit us, what else could hit you at that height?

“It was just hard to fathom that it would be a large jetliner or the fact that it would be a terrorist attack, that it would be first of the several others.

“None of us thought it was a terrorist attack. None of us thought that that entire building might catch up in flames and that eventually it might collapse,” he recalled.

Mr John said that the “fear of death” was written on people’s faces once they realised what was happening.

For rolling coverage on a ceremony to commemorate 9/11, click here

“Our walls in our office were caving around us. Everything was collapsing. There were some people stuck in our restrooms,” he said.

“We were on the floor for a few minutes, 28 of us in the office. And then someone rallies us and says, ‘We’ve got to beat the fire’.

“We started heading towards the near stairwell, but on that stairwell, there’s thousands of people joining us there from all these floors.

“There was one thing in common … There was this fear of death that was so visibly written on everyone’s face.

“That’s when we hear this other explosion, which was the second plane crashing into the second tower. But for those on the stairwell, we didn’t know what was going on, but we had a feeling something horrible was happening on the outside.”

Mr John said he was very worried about his wife, not only because she worked in the South Tower, but because she was four months pregnant at the time.

“I’m trying to reach her because she’s four months pregnant, going through hard pregnancy, but our cell phones wouldn’t work,” he said.

“I borrowed the phones of people running down and none of our phones would work.

“That’s when, as we are continuing our way down, we see the sight that changed everything for all of us that day. We see these incredibly brave firefighters and policemen going up as we are going down.

“We had no idea then that would be the last time we would be seeing the faces of these brave men.”

Mr John escaped the building after about an hour and began to search for his wife, before his life was saved by an FBI agent.

“I come down 81 floors and I eventually reached the concourse level.

“Before that, we see all the destruction on the plaza, there’s bodies and body parts, there’s a picture of death now,” he said.

“On the concourse level, I thought, ‘What if my wife is somewhere near her building?’ So I started walking towards the South Tower, thinking I might find my wife.

“That’s when the ground shakes, it felt like it was an earthquake, everything just shakes.

“I feel I’ve been sucked into some kind of vacuum, this was the South Tower that was imploding and going down.

“That’s when I come to terms with my own eternity … There were 15, 20 people with me, we huddled together, said our last prayers, and then we scattered from that huddle.

“I’m being buried in, thinking I’m gonna die because I can’t breathe. Someone pulls me and I began to pull him, this was an FBI agent, and we told each other we’re gonna die.

“We see something so miraculous, a red light flashing through the smoke.

“It was a flashing light coming out of an ambulance that was parked on the street level. Part of that ambulance was crushed, but the light was flashing,” he said.

He said: “We followed that light, and that light leads us out of the pit.

“That’s when this brave man, this FBI agent, he says, ‘I gotta go back and get more people,’ … This brave American hero died that day.”

Mr John said he was in a place of “misery” and “hopelessness” and had given up on finding his wife.

“I’ve given up about my wife because the towers don’t exist anymore …

“And then my cell phone rings. It’s my wife, the first call that came in that day, all day cell phones were not working. I just heard a voice and the phone went dead and then she called again,” he said.

“But I just knew that she was alive. She’s somewhere. And the most amazing part is that she was late to work by a few minutes.

“She came in by the E-train and by then, the North Tower is hit. The train stops probably one stop before the World Trade Centre, she gets out on the street level and she sees people jumping out of the building.

“She sees a second plane crash into hers and she’s thinking I’m one of them. That was how her life was spared.”

Mr John paid tribute to the frontline workers who died during, and since the 9/11 attacks.

“We lost close to 3,000 people that day, but close to another 6,000, 7,000 people have died since then, and thousands more suffering from all kinds of cancers and sicknesses. Most of them were first responders,” he said.

“The world saw evil. Nineteen al-Qaeda terrorists full of hatred for America and everything that the west stands for, attacked us that day, and the response to that tragedy came from these men.

“They showed the world what this country is made up of, that there are men and women so willing to lay down their lives so that others can be around, sharing their stories.

“When we go through challenges of time, there are good people who will always race up those buildings, get into a burning house, pull women and children out.

“My thoughts are about those people; they didn’t have to go up. But they went there because they had this incredible drive and passion to help,” he said.