The Falling Man

Last night a documentary repeat was shown on channel 4. 9/11 The Falling Man, was the story behind one of the most shocking and provocative news photographs of recent years; a shot of one of the "jumpers" from the World Trade Centre disaster. The photograph caught the man (later incorrectly identified as Norberto Hernandez a chef at the Windows of the World), falling passively head first to his death and when the image was published in many American newspapers on September 12th, there was a sudden angry backlash about it. Thousands of people complained it was voyeuristic and exploitative, and it was effective blacklisted and omitted from publications about 9/11 thereafter in a strange action of self censorship by the media who preferred to print photos of acts of heroism and sacrifice.
The filmmaker Henry Singer, postulated that America could not cope with the notion of suicide connected with 9/11, and argued that although over 200 jumped to their deaths from the upper floors of the buildings, most members of the public were not aware that this actually occurred. Singer told of the coroner's department statements that stated non of the dead actually jumped from the building preferring to say that they fell (
Personally I think that was an effort to be kind to the relatives rather than being symptomatic of a nation's inability to cope with the truth) Singer's arguments were interesting and persuasive and I did find myself thinking , why didn't the media see the jumpers as heroic in their own way. Particularly moving, was the comment by a bereaved husband who stated that his wife's leap from one of the upper windows as the best choice she had made saying that leaping into the cool air must have felt like flying. It gave him obvious comfort.
The documentary left more questions than answers, and one phrase did chill me to the bone as Singer described the jumpers' last moments,
he said that "they embarked on that last, lonely ten second journey" .
Very sad.