9/11 survivor Joe Dittmar has opened up about one major regret from the worst day of his life 24 years ago.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, the insurance worker had travelled to New York City from Chicago to attend a meeting alongside 53 others in the south tower of the World Trade Center.
When the second al-Qaeda-hijacked plane (United Airlines Flight 175) ploughed into the sky lobby on the 78th floor, Joe was situated only a few floors below as he descended the fire stairwell - having just left a number of his confused colleagues and friends in the impact zone.
For a new episode of Minutes With marking the terrorist attack's anniversary, LADbible spoke with the father-of-four about his chilling experiences as the tragedy occurred.
Advert
"There were 54 of us in that meeting, seven of us survived. 47 perished that day, almost all of them have yet to be identified," he revealed.
Even now, forensic scientists are still working on identifying victims through the tiniest amounts of DNA taken from the rubble - 'to try to continue to bring some people home'.
"I hope that they can do that someday for some of my friends that were lost that day," Joe shared.
One individual at the sky lobby level was a woman named Mary, who was running his meeting that morning.
"Nobody that went to the sky lobby made it out. When the plane went through the building, the elevator cables were just cut, those elevators went straight to the ground, nobody survived and she left behind a husband and two boys who are grown men now," the survivor recalled.
"That's just one person who lived her life so strongly, she was a woman who was at the top of the insurance game at the time. She had broken through the glass ceiling and to see her life taken in that way was so sad.
"I didn't think to ask her to come with me," he continued, breaking into tears.
"I guess I should've; her boys would have a mum, her husband would have a spouse, but as a survivor you can't live that because if you do, you won't survive.
"I've had two nightmares since this all occurred. Mary was in both of them, and in both of those dreams Mary was standing at the end of my bed and saying 'It's alright Joe, it's OK Joe' and I gotta keep telling her story."
Elsewhere in the interview, Joe described the exact moment he realised the magnitude of the north tower's explosion as he and his co-workers attempted to reach the ground level of their adjacent building.
"You look out the windows to the north and you see these huge gaping black holes through the sides of that building," he said.
"Grey and black billows of smoke pouring out of those holes, flames redder than any red I had seen before in my life just flicking up the side of the building and beyond the top level.
"I remember looking through that smoke, that fire, through those black holes and seeing pieces of the fuselage of a large plane lodged inside the other building and I kept thinking to myself: 'My God, how did that pilot not see the building? How did he miss?' He didn't miss..."
Dan Seddon