Firefighter: Surviving the 9/11 North Tower collapse

On 11 September 2001, firefighter Jay Jonas and his crew were sent into New York's North Tower after a hijacked plane crashed into the World Trade Center.

As they climbed the stairs searching for people who needed help, the South Tower collapsed.

Realising their rescue mission could no longer continue, the firefighters turned around and began making their way down.

On their descent they came across a woman, Josephine Harris.

"She was crying. She was in distress. And I said, 'Alright, bring her with us.'"

The firefighters took her with them, but she could not move at their pace.

"We made it to the fourth floor and Josephine Harris falls to the floor. And she starts yelling at us, leave me, get away from me, don't touch me, leave me alone."

Moments later, the North Tower collapsed.

Buried beneath the rubble, Jay, his crew and Josephine somehow survived. He tells Rowan Bridge how stopping to help Josephine slowed their escape from the tower. But the place where they were forced to stop turned out to be exactly where they needed to be when the building collapsed.

"By her making a stand on the fourth floor, that put us in the exact right spot. And we lived."

Witness History is a short BBC World Service podcast about history that takes you inside big moments from the past through first-hand testimony and archive. Each weekday, in around nine minutes, we revisit one moment that helped shape the world and hear it through the voice of someone who was there. Scientists, artists, campaigners, soldiers, leaders and everyday people tell their true stories.

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(Photo: Jay Jonas. Credit: Getty Images)