'I survived the epicentre of 9/11 - I'm so lucky'

Warning: This story contains graphic details of the aftermath from the 9/11 attacks.

On 11 September 2001, photographer and documentary filmmaker Paul Berriff was living and working in New York City.

He was caught up in the 9/11 attacks and still remembers the day in vivid detail.

More recently, he has become one of thousands of survivors to be diagnosed with terminal illnesses connected with the long-term effects of that day.

Now aged 80 and living near Northallerton in North Yorkshire, Berriff has recalled the events.

"Somebody came into the office and said a plane had hit the twin towers," he said.

First thinking it was likely to be a light aircraft or helicopter, often seen flying around the landmark, he phoned his wife who was at their home in Lower Manhattan.

She told him about "fire engines and people running around" and his "news instinct kicked in" and he travelled to the scene to document the events on camera.

As Berriff, a sound recordist and assistant producer approached, they could see "both towers were on fire".

"We could see these black dots coming down from the side of each building and we wondered what it was," he said.

"As we got nearer, we could see it was people jumping, so we knew it was pretty serious."

They headed to the base of the towers, where assistant fire commissioner Steve Gregory was sending firefighters in.

"Suddenly, there was this loud explosion to my left," Berriff said.

"The camera was on and I turned it round and looked up, just to see the top of the south tower peeling away, like a massive umbrella opening."

Whilst firefighters shouted for everybody to run away, Berriff said he "stayed there, looking through the small viewfinder on my camera to see 250,000 tonnes of metal and girders hurtling towards me".

After "about two seconds", he and sound recordist Lulu "started running down the street".

"The next thing I remember was my camera leaving my hand in slow-motion and everything goes black."

He was unconscious for approximately 35 minutes, during which time the second tower also collapsed.

After regaining consciousness, Berriff said his "mouth was full of all this cement gunge stuff".

"I could hardly breathe. I was hot, I was sweating, my trousers were burning. Total blackness, I've never seen blackness like it."

After many minutes of crawling to try and escape the "hell hole that I was in", Berriff emerged from under the rubble.

"I could see everything's gone from colour to black and white," he said.

"It was like ash from a volcano."

After realising Lulu was no longer with him, Berriff returned to the area where he had been buried under the rubble.

"In the road about 100 yards ahead of me, there was bits of the tower embedded in the roadway," he said.

"The police later said I was probably the first alive person in the epicentre of it - it was just total devastation."

He found Lulu's sound mixer and his camera, which he picked up before returning to his apartment block, where Lulu was waiting.

"She'd been grabbed by one of the fire officers and they'd run into an underground garage so she'd escaped all the major impact."

It was at this point he realised he was injured, with blood covering his back.

His wife accompanied him to hospital, where he was decontaminated as a precaution as emergency services were concerned that there "might have been anthrax or other toxic chemicals that the terrorists may have put in all the planes".

"So by now, they knew."

Following treatment, they had no keys or other belongings so stayed at the home of a nurse, whose husband loaned Berriff clothes.

"I went into the sitting room and I'd still got the camera with me," he said.

"I pressed play and up came all this imagery of what had happened to me."

Berriff founded the Humber Rescue lifeboat charity in his back garden in Hessle, near Hull, in 1989.

Six years later, he established a lifeboat station on the bank of the Humber.

He was appointed OBE for his work in 2016 and volunteers now attend more than 100 callouts each year.

Twenty-five years on from 9/11, he is still feeling its impact.

"All of us that escaped that day thought we'd done well, then about three or four years ago, we started developing these illnesses," he said.

"All of us had ingested the cloud which contained body parts, glass, aviation fuel, you name it.

"We'd eaten all this, ingested it all.

"It had laid dormant for 20 years and we've all developed these fatal diseases."

He was diagnosed three years ago with pulmonary fibrosis.

"My consultant said I've only got five years to live," he said.

"That was quite a shock actually, having survived it all that close and then 'bang' this happens."

According to the 9/11 Memorial, tens of thousands of people have been diagnosed with illnesses linked to the attack.

After 9/11, Berriff said he "lives every day as full as I can".

"The only thing that stays with me is that I actually survived it and I shouldn't have done," he said.

"I ran down the street with the sound recordist. I went straight down the street.

"Those that went to the left or right of us, they died.

"I'm so lucky."

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