[originaltext] When the first plane slammed into the World Trade Center’s n

When the first plane slammed into the World Trade Center’s north tower, I was already at my desk on the 88th floor. Then I felt the whole building bouncing and shaking. My instinct told me that there was an explosion above us and that we should try to get out, but the corridors were full of flames.
     Knowing that the furniture and the carpets were fire-resistant, I figured that everything wasn’t going to burn. Then I heard someone yell that the stairwells were gone. So about 40 of us escaped into a corner office. We put papers and rags under the door to keep out the smoke as best we could. We stayed calmly in the office for about 10 minutes, thinking we were safe and secure. Then someone came in to tell us that he had found a stairwell open but we had to move fast. We all filed out orderly and headed for the stairwell.  However, I later found out that the man who found the stairwell for us didn’t make it out of the building safely.
     Going down the stairs was not easy for me for I had lost a leg due to cancer when I was 16 and wore an artificial limb. More or less, I used my arms to get down.
     At the 78th floor, I noticed one of my friends, Tony, stuck in the elevator. We ran over to the elevator to try to pull open the door. I never tried harder to do anything in my life, but, without tools, we couldn’t get it open. Tony insisted that we should get out. Reluctantly we left him there. Tony was among the missing.
     When we reached the 40th floor, we came to a complete stop. There was a jam of people. The firemen were coming up the stairs, carrying their equipment.  Some 100 firefighters must have walked past us. Some of them looked so young that they seemed hardly out of high school. But they were great, assuring us that they would take care of everything. Eventually we kept moving and got out.
    The journey down took about 40 minutes.