Why I can never block out the Twin Towers

A GUERNSEY resident has relived his close-up experiences of the horrors of 11 September 2001. Speaking on the fifth anniversary of the atrocity, John Halker recalled what he had seen from little more than a block away from the World Trade Center.

'I heard it flying over me and I looked up and watched it. The moment it hit that building, I just clicked my camera and then nothing - nothing happened for what seemed like five seconds.

'There was no smoke and no fire. In reality it probably lasted less than a second.

'I had to entirely suspend reality in my head to acknowledge what had just happened.'

Mr Halker was in the gym on the 42nd floor of his apartment building when terrorists attacked the Twin Towers.

'A person beside me on a treadmill pointed out smoke coming from the north tower - a lot of smoke.

'I ran downstairs grabbed my camera, and went back up and out on to the terrace. I heard the second plane coming before I saw it.'

Mr Halker, 53, a hypnotherapist, has lived in Guernsey with his wife and young son for the last three years.

He still thinks about 9/11 a few times a week - whenever something crops up to remind him - but he has never had counselling.

'I did feel sorry for myself for a few weeks afterwards, but then I called my aunt who had lived in London during the Blitz. I asked her how she moved on from it, if she ever suffered any post-traumatic stress? She said she didn't have time for that - she was too busy getting on with life.

'I guess there's that huge element of Britishness - of just wanting to play things down.'

After Mr Halker witnessed the second crash, he saw the emergency services gathering in the road.

He wanted to help, ran outside and soon realised how bad things really were. Distressed and confused people were leaving the WTC.

He then saw those who had jumped from the towers hit the pavements around him. He even saw a couple jump together, holding hands.

'In a strange way, those people saved my life. I thought one would land on me and I thought there was nothing else I could do where I was, so I started moving away from the buildings.'

Mr Halker said that he was still moved by the courage of those who had jumped rather than die at someone else's hands.

When he realised that the building was going to collapse, he started walking back to his apartment.

'I was a couple of hundred yards away from the building when someone came running past me and said, ?it's going''. I turned and looked and then ran towards the World Financial Center.'

Mr Halker helped people make good their escape, but said that he had been no hero.

'It was all just a reaction to 1,000 different things going on around me at that time. It's incredibly hard to explain. We just didn't know what was going on.'

There was carnage when he left the WTC. He could not see through the smoke and dust and could barely breathe.

He was one of thousands making their way through the debris to get away.

When he attempted to return home, he was evacuated across the Hudson River to New Jersey.

He had no idea of where he was going or what he would do. Police told him that his accommodation would be paid for.

But the Federal Emergency Management Agency did not do so because he was British. After weeks of living in a hotel, Mr Halker had a bill of nearly $10,000.

'I didn't check the nationalities of the people I saved that day, but you've got to move on. I can't harbour ill will towards a bunch of officials who are saddled with running a system that is ill conceived. I've got to look forward.'

Mr Halker did not even harbour ill feeling towards those responsible for the attacks. He said there was little to gain from remaining angry with terrorists and simply called them misguided.

He left the US in November 2001 and returned to England, but it is only since moving to Guernsey that he has felt that his life has become normal.

'For the first six months after 9/11, I was immersing myself in things, trying to get back to normality. But I was always travelling, so I'd never really had stability.

'Coming here was a real turning point. I have my family and Guernsey is such a contrast to so many of the bad places in the world. I feel cocooned.'

Mr Halker continues to hold a positive attitude towards the experience. He said he had been lucky to be there, because it had given him the opportunity to learn more about himself and allowed him to achieve what he did that day.

'There's 99% of me that wants to completely forget about it, and then there's that other 1% of me that wants to remember how lucky I am.'