Nathan Shields, 27, KPMG consultant at Morgan Stanley

We were in World Trade Center 2, on the 46th floor — and something hit about 30 or 40 feet above us. My buddy Andy, who was there [during the 1993 bombing], starts hauling ass and grabs me and this girl Amy. We ran down 46 flights of stairs. There were no alarms, no announcements. Nobody came on and said, "Evacuate the building." When we got to the bottom, we knew we had to get out but we didn't want to go into the street because it was chaos out there. Finally we ran for it.

The next explosion came when we were on Williams Street. I saw the jet coming at the last second, and kept walking east up to midtown where I am now. Here’s what I keep thinking about now: What if we had just stood around at the bottom? What if we hadn't hauled ass out of there? My friend Andy was the hero who led the charge down the steps.