3 men who survived the 9/11 attack were Don Basco (on the 59th floor of the first tower), Joe Dittmar (on the 105th floor in the South tower), and Ryan Yantis (who was outside of the pentagon that day). In a interview all of the 3 men were in the attack and are talking about this topic 20 years later.

Don Basco
Don Basco was a computer consultant on assignment with his company; he was only supposed
to be in New York City for a week and September 11th was his first day on the new job. He was
on the 57th floor of the North Tower when the first plane had hit and remembers all the building
swaying. Basco said, “I didn’t know if I should go up, down, take the stairs, or the elevator he just
didn’t know.” He then ended up going after his gut and walking down a flight of
stairs. Another thing he said was, “One thing I’ll never forget is the smell of jet fuel. The smell of
concrete dust. The sight of the firemen. I will never forget those things”. Basco still has the
clothes he wore that same day when the awful incident happened. Basco’s wife had woken him
up Sunday after a reporter had called to say that Bin Laden was dead.

Joe Dittmar
Joe Dittmar was working on the 105th floor in the World Trade Center in the South Tower when
the first plane had hit the North Tower. Dittmar vividly described it as “gaping black holes through
the sides of that building..gray and black billows of smoke pouring out of those holes, flames
redder than any red I’d ever seen before in my life, flicking up the side of the building”. Dittmar
had taken the train to Manhattan that morning from Philadelphia, so he decided to go back to
Penn Station and hop on a train and go back, get his rental car and then drive to Illinois. After his
eventful day he had spent the night at his parents house in Philadelphia.

Ryan Yantis
Yantis, who was a public affairs officer at that time, was in the pentagon watching the news on the TV when he had seen the first plane hit
the World Trade Center. Yantis left his office to escort a senior officer to a meeting held in
another part of the building but the officer couldn’t remember where. Yantis, with other volunteer
rescuers, spent the rest of the frenzied day carrying the victims on stretchers to safety. He knew
four of his fellow Pentagon workers who were in the attack. He spent 22 years in the U.S. Army,
first as a Cavalry officer in Germany and Korea, and later as a Public Affairs Officer in Europe
and Africa. He now is serving as a Communications Manager of the Illinois Department of
Veterans’ Affairs and is a Crystal Lake resident. Yantis said, “When the second one hit there was
no doubt in my mind this was a deliberate terrorist attack on America.” Also he says, “I saw that there were a couple of stretchers. I grabbed one and
started … helping carry people out.” Yantis is now 60 and retired from the Army as a lieutenant
colonel in 2006. Yantis is, a native of California, also a graduate of the University of Missouri, Columbia.