Warning: This story contains graphic details of the aftermath from the 9/11 attacks.
On 11 September 2001, Paul Berriff was working as a photographer and documentary filmmaker in New York City when the attacks unfolded. Driven by his news instincts, he rushed to the World Trade Center to document the disaster on camera—only to find himself buried under tonnes of rubble as the south tower collapsed. Now aged 80 and living near Northallerton in North Yorkshire, Berriff has become one of thousands of survivors diagnosed with terminal illnesses linked to long-term exposure to the dust and debris from that day.
Berriff's account of 11 September 2001 begins with an ordinary office moment.
"Somebody came into the office and said a plane had hit the twin towers,"he recalled. Initially assuming it was a light aircraft or helicopter—common sights near the landmark—he telephoned his wife at their home in Lower Manhattan. She described
"fire engines and people running around"and his professional instincts took over. He and a sound recordist named Lulu travelled towards the scene to capture the unfolding events.
As they approached the towers, the scale of the disaster became apparent.
"We could see both towers were on fire."The pair noticed something deeply disturbing:
"We could see these black dots coming down from the side of each building and we wondered what it was. As we got nearer, we could see it was people jumping, so we knew it was pretty serious."They made their way to the base of the towers, where assistant fire commissioner Steve Gregory was coordinating the deployment of firefighters into the buildings.
The moment of catastrophe came suddenly and without warning.
"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."As firefighters shouted orders to evacuate, Berriff remained transfixed by what he was witnessing through his camera viewfinder.
"I stayed there, looking through the small viewfinder on my camera to see 250,000 tonnes of metal and girders hurtling towards me."
Survival instinct finally took hold.
"After about two seconds, he and sound recordist Lulu started running down the street."But escape was impossible.
"The next thing I remember was my camera leaving my hand in slow-motion and everything goes black."Berriff lost consciousness for approximately 35 minutes—during which time the second tower also collapsed—before regaining awareness buried beneath the debris.
The experience of being trapped was nightmarish.
"My 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 crawling through what he described as a
"hell hole,"he eventually emerged from under the rubble.
"I could see everything's gone from colour to black and white. It was like ash from a volcano."
Realising that Lulu was no longer with him, Berriff returned to the area where he had been buried.
"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 located Lulu's sound mixer and his camera before returning to his apartment block, where he found Lulu safe.
"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 only then that Berriff realised the extent of his injuries, with blood covering his back. His wife took him to hospital, where staff decontaminated him as a precaution. Emergency services were concerned that
"there might have been anthrax or other toxic chemicals that the terrorists may have put in all the planes."After treatment, the couple had no keys or belongings, so they stayed at the home of a nurse whose husband provided Berriff with clothes.
"I went into the sitting room and I'd still got the camera with me,"Berriff said.
"I pressed play and up came all this imagery of what had happened to me."
Before 9/11, Berriff had already established himself as a dedicated humanitarian. He founded the Humber Rescue lifeboat charity in his back garden in Hessle, near Hull, in 1989, and six years later established a lifeboat station on the bank of the Humber. His contributions to rescue work earned him an OBE appointment in 2016, and the volunteers he trained now respond to more than 100 callouts each year.
The long-term toll of exposure
Twenty-five years after the attacks, Berriff continues to feel their impact in ways he could not have anticipated.
"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 explained. The cause was the toxic cloud that engulfed the area.
"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."
Three years ago, Berriff received a diagnosis that shattered his sense of survival: 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, making Berriff part of a much larger cohort of survivors facing similar health crises.
His story was highlighted anew on 11 September 2026 as part of coverage marking the 25th anniversary, bringing fresh attention to the delayed health consequences that continue to claim survivors decades after the attacks. Regional reporting from North Yorkshire has also kept his story active in the broader remembrance coverage, situating him as a Yorkshire resident whose experience connects local communities to the global tragedy.
Living with gratitude and loss
Despite his terminal diagnosis, Berriff has adopted a philosophy of gratitude and presence.
"I live every day as full as I can,"he said. Yet the weight of survival never leaves him.
"The only thing that stays with me is that I actually survived it and I shouldn't have done. 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."The randomness of who lived and who perished—determined by the direction they ran in those final seconds—remains a haunting reality.
Berriff's account serves as a powerful reminder that the consequences of 9/11 extended far beyond the immediate death toll and destruction. For survivors like him, the true cost has unfolded across decades, as the toxic legacy of that day continues to claim lives through illness and disease.
