RETIRED Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Officer, Hugh Ross, who witnessed the fall of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, said that television shows a sanitised version of the horror.
"You have to be at the site of Ground Zero to appreciate the extent of the devastation," he said in an interview yesterday.

Ross did not work at the World Trade Center in New York. Nor did he see when the two aircraft, commandeered by suicide hijackers last September 11, plough into the landmark Twin Towers.

However Ross' job as the Supervisor of a team of Security Officers employed by a private firm in 35th Street, midtown Manhattan would thrust him up close and personal to tragedy of a magnitude he had never seen before.

"I was in the vicinity of 34th Street and Seventh Avenue speaking with two Police officers and two security officers, when a transmission came through on the radio. It said a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center," Ross recalled.

"I looked up and saw lots of smoke on the horizon coming from downtown," he added.

Within seconds, Ross was in contact with his office and was instructed to mobilise a team of about 20 and head to the site in the event that they would be needed.

Ross and his men piled into taxis and were off.

"Up to then I figured that maybe a news chopper had ventured too close to the tower or maybe a plane had experienced mechanical failure resulting in an accident," he related.

"We were not half way there when I heard a loud explosion and received another radio transmission that another plane had hit the other tower. I radioed my guys in the other cabs to stop and get out," he said.

It was gut instinct and his training that told him they should proceed with caution as they approached the site.

"So there we were, going towards the WTC on foot when suddenly we were confronted by a wall of screaming people, running towards us, all obviously fleeing," Ross said.

According to him, some of the men with him, confronted by the mass of people, turned around and ran with the crowd.

He, however, decided to hang around.

After a few minutes, he eased back into the street and pressed forward.

"It was chaos. Both towers were on fire. I saw people jumping or being blasted out from the towers. I saw distinctly at least four persons leaping off the buildings. Then as we were watching, the first tower crumbled," Ross remembered.

At that moment, he realised that thousands of persons would have been killed or injured. Tonnes of burning jet fuel weakened the steel support of the towers causing them to collapse into a twisted mass of metal, concrete, glass and other debris.

"In the dust I saw arms and legs, and other body parts," Ross said.

The former Special Forces member spent the next three hours in the vicinity, helping the injured. He also assisted in the evacuation of Empire State Building, another NY City landmark which authorities feared it could have become a target for terrorists, who by then had crashed another commercial plane into the Pentagon in Washington DC.

Ross also remembered hundreds of brave New York fire firefighters and Police officers who went into the burning WTC towers and were inside when they collapsed.

"They responded accordingly. It was their duty to try to save lives. It was not a case of fools rushing in. I can't say for sure that I would not have gone in myself…maybe if I was closer," Ross offered.

RETURN TO GROUND ZERO
The images of September 11, remained with Ross. Three days later he returned to `Ground Zero' and viewed the destruction at first hand.

"I had never seen devastation like that before. That is when the full impact struck me in the chest. It was so…. massive," he said haltingly, as he searched for words to describe the scene.

"On television what we see is a sanitised version. You have to be on the ground to have the full impact of what this is all about."

Ross believes it is his military background and training that causes him to be able to continue to function without needing psychological treatment or counselling.

But the experience has changed him.

"We are here for just a short time. One should not be hesitant to do what you want to do while you can…because you never know," he stated, philosophically.

Ross said he has one friend who worked in the WTC and he was relieved when he learnt that person made it out alive.

Twelve days after the tragedy and more than a week since any survivor was pulled from the ruins, Ross said he is still following events, but with a sense of diminishing hope.

"For the first week I held on to hope that there could be life under there, possibly within pockets, that people could be trapped below ground level, sealed off and safe. But if they managed to survive the initial disaster they can stay alive for so long and no more," Ross opined. "Time has been ticking."