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| David Handschuh |
"In the back of my mind, I heard a voice that said, 'Run, run, run, run.'"
A photographer for the New York Daily News, Handschuh lives in New Jersey, where, days after the attack, he greeted visitors with his broken right leg propped on a couch.
September 11, I got to sleep in. It was the first day of my graduate class of photojournalism at New York University, so I was scheduled to teach in the morning and work at night -- election-day evening, starting at 5 p.m. I was minding my own business on Tuesday morning, listening to the radio on my way to school, when I saw this large column of smoke over lower Manhattan. I was around 14th Street or 23rd Street, something like that. I always have the police and fire radios on in the car, and all of a sudden the people on Manhattan fire [radio] start screaming, "Send every piece of apparatus that you have, an airplane just crashed into the World Trade Center." I had absolutely no idea that it was a terrorist attack, or that it was going to be the tragedy that it turned out to be. All I know is I was pretty damn close to the scene. [On my cell phone] I called the Daily News desk and said, "I'm right downtown if you want me to go," and they said go. So I called NYU and said, "A plane just crashed into the World Trade Center -- I think we are going to have to cancel class today." I called home and left a message for my wife saying a plane just crashed into the World Trade Center and I think this is going to be a busy day.
As I was driving down the West Side Highway, a fire department rescue company came rushing past on the south-bound side. I swerved over and just hooked onto their rear bumper and followed them down. The back doors were open, and you could see the guys throwing on their oxygen packs, taking tools out of the truck, putting them in their bags, and getting ready to go to work. In the midst of all the insanity a couple of guys waved out the back door to me. That entire company, I believe, is gone; there is not a guy who's left.
I'm pretty sure I made some [pictures] right out of the front window of my car, with the rescue company in the foreground and the smoke on the horizon. They led me down to the scene; I couldn't have been any closer. I parked my car on West Street and popped the trunk. I have a pretty good collection of stuff there for most emergencies. I have a bulletproof vest; I have fire boots; I even have a hard helmet.
It was quiet. There were people that were coming into work with their bags, their coffees, their croissants -- just standing and watching. There weren't people running out of buildings. You could hear the flames crackling, you could hear glass breaking, you could hear things falling. It was like someone turned the volume off on the usual hubbub of the city that morning, like somebody hit the mute button.
I focused originally on the buildings when I got there, took a look to make a few establishing shots. There was only one tower on fire when I got there. We had no idea it was a terrorist attack; it was just some god-awful accident. But looking up and seeing eight or nine floors of the tower on fire, with the fire apparatus responding, I knew it was probably the biggest challenge the firefighters were ever going to face. I was there to document it. There was no doubt in my mind that the fire would be extinguished and the people would be saved. I had absolutely no idea what this would turn into an hour and a half later.
I never once felt that I was in personal danger. Yes, I had to be aware of debris that was falling down; yes, I had to be aware of the usual precautions when you cover a news story. I never thought that I would be running for my life when a 110-story building was hit by terrorists.
 I got there fast. There were very few firefighters or police on the scene when I got there.
There was nobody coming out of the North Tower -- the first to be hit. The people that I saw out on the street were running out of the South Tower, or the Marriott hotel, covering their heads with briefcases, newspapers. There were a couple of people who had a serving tray and were running with that over their heads. It was bizarre: The North Tower was on fire, and people were starting to evacuate the South Tower, and there were vehicles a block and a half away that were on fire. And then when you started looking closely at the debris in the streets, it was not just building parts but [also] body parts. There were arms and hands lying in the street that did not look real. They looked like plastic. And then the people started jumping. I guess they [had] the choice of falling to their death or burning to death. The sounds of the bodies hitting the sidewalk will never leave my mind.
When a body hit the ground on West Street, there were four cops who weren't wearing helmets, no protective gear, who started running up thinking that maybe they could help this person. I thought, "But he's dead, there is nothing you can do. Don't get yourself hurt."
Then this noise filled the air that sounded like a high-pressure gas line had been ruptured. It seemed to come from all over, not one direction. Everyone was looking around thinking, "What was that?" And the second tower explodes. That was the second aircraft, plowing into the South Tower. At that point it became obvious that this wasn't an unfortunate accident.
I don't even recall making the picture that wound up in the paper the next day. Just after we started seeing the flames come out of the South Tower, I pulled the camera and started shooting.
Time stood still. I had just run into a friend of mine, [a television cameraman], who said he had unbelievable footage of the second tower getting hit. We just gave each other a hug and said be careful, and I went on north on West Street, and he went running east. I heard another noise. The [South Tower] was disintegrating. The whole building was starting to come down.
My initial reaction was to grab my camera, hold it up, and start taking pictures. But in the back of my mind, I heard a voice that said, "Run, run, run, run." I've been doing this for 20 years, and I never run. But there is no doubt that if I hadn't listened to the voice, I would not be here today.
I was running as fast as my little legs could carry me. And all of a sudden the wind picked me up. It was like getting hit in the back by a wave at the beach -- [a wave] that was made out of hot, black gravel. Maybe it was like getting picked up by a tornado. All of a sudden I was flying. I had absolutely no control over what direction I was going.
I didn't lose consciousness. I lost my pager; I lost my cell phone; I lost my glasses. I didn't lose my cameras. I wound up under a vehicle. I don't know if it was a truck [or a car]. I couldn't breathe. I was positive that I was going to die in the gutter of the streets of New York. I tried reaching for my cell phone, but that wasn't there. I just wanted to call home and tell everybody that I loved them.
At some point, I realized that my right leg wasn't working. I couldn't get up. I was trapped under debris. I don't know what was on top of me. I didn't know how [deeply] buried I was. So I started calling for help, after I cleared all kinds of debris out of my mouth and my nose and realized I could breathe. I don't know how long I was calling for help, but after a while I heard, "Don't worry, brother -- we will get you out." It was three firefighters who were just walking through. They picked me up and carried me out of harm's way.
We all wound up in a delicatessen about a block away from Battery Park City. A lot of people were seeking shelter there. There was a lot of debris coming down. I was lying on the floor; the place is packed like an A train; I'm trying not to get my legs stepped on; and all of a sudden the [North] Tower comes down.
Debris just starts flying again, and I guess the facade of the building we were in came down. It turned dark outside again, and a bunch of grown men inside were holding onto each other for their lives. Some were calm, some were screaming, and someone said we had to get out of there. Just with the desire to live, they pushed their way out of the debris and opened the front door. Someone says, "We're getting you out of here." They weren't leaving me there. So these three guys -- a cop, a firefighter, and a paramedic -- were carrying me, [with] my arms around their shoulders and their arms around my thighs, my legs dangling in front of me. Every bump was like white light; the pain was just amazing.
They carried me down to the Hudson River, and there was a police boat there. They put me on [a] backboard and they put me on the deck of the boat. There was a police chief there with a concussion, bleeding from her head. An injured firefighter was there. We must have been some sight. But I couldn't see anything because I didn't have my glasses, and I remember looking up and the sun was shining, blue skies, low humidity. It would've been a real nice day to take a cruise on New York Harbor, but I have this bizarre blurry scene in front of me, smoke drifting across the horizon, and a big hole where the twin towers [used to be].
They took us by boat to Ellis Island. And there we were, under the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, huddled masses yearning to breathe free, and a symbol of New York, a symbol of the United States, a symbol of the American economic system, [was] lying in ruins. We got some medical attention there [and were] taken by ambulance to a hospital in Bayonne [New Jersey].
A photographer's job is to take pictures, but that's only half of it. The remainder of the job is to take those images and share them with readers. I could have had the most amazing pictures in the world; I could've had the buildings falling down; I could've had the planes crashing into the buildings; but if my camera hadn't gotten up to the paper there wouldn't have been completion of my job. I knew I had to hand my camera to a coworker and to the newspaper so [my pictures] would get edited and be given a fair shake through the process of editing. I had no qualms of handing over my camera.
The public needs to know that there are people behind the pictures -- that there are men and women out there working 18- or 20-hour days, continuously going down to the World Trade Center [to photograph sights] they don't ever want to see again. [These people didn't] get the time to take a deep breath and think about their lives. They didn't have the time to sit down with their families and their kids. They [were] doing this out of a sense of responsibility as journalists.
I'm hurting. It's going to be a long recuperation process. But in the general scheme of things, I'm here, and I'm really, really happy to be here. People have asked if I'm going to keep taking pictures and the answer is probably yes. Do I want to keep being out on the streets of New York? I don't know. Tuesday's accomplishment was being able to stand up. Wednesday's accomplishment was being able to make it about six feet. Thursday's accomplishment was getting up on the crutches and walking into the kitchen. What I do think, though, is that photographers and journalists who were at the scene [should] take a few minutes and assess [their] psychological well-being. It's not normal to see this stuff. We are not machines; we are people, and we need to get some kind of stress debriefing, whether it's talking with a friend or a clergyman, a psychologist, psychiatrist, [or other] mental health worker. We'll get over this. We will be changed, in ways that we never imagined. But we will be stronger and more tolerant. I know that just looking out the window at the blue sky makes me really happy that I am here.
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