Metin Payman, the 2001 Economics graduate who sent the message below to Bilkent News, was one of the people directly affected by the terrible tragedy in the United States. We wish to offer him our sympathy.
    "…as I was looking at the World Trade Center (WTC) from the Wall Street side, I became a witness to the last fire dance of the WTC's twin towers. Both buildings were on fire and people were jumping to their deaths right from the very top! I started to take some pictures and was about to take the forth one, when, what did I see! The building was collapsing! Even worse, it was falling right down on top of us! The 110-floor building was falling towards us bringing with it tons of concrete and dust! It all happened so quickly that I couldn't run away and fell to the ground hit by the debris coming from the falling building. I protected my head with my hands and started to pray and said my last words! I thought I had died! But inside I was praying to God "please don't let me die like this". I couldn't move for a while because the area around me was covered with dust and rubble and my nose, eyes and ears were filled with dust. I couldn't breathe. I was just lying there. After a while, I was finally able to stand. It was too dark to see anything. Heavy smoke filled the air and blocked out the sun.
I had to breathe, but I wasn't able to and each breath was a struggle

Stumbling blindly, I was finally able to find the broken window of a ground floor office building. I broke the rest of the window out and jumped in. All I could see was the red alarm light. I found myself in a bank (HSBC). I could no longer stand the lack of air and looked for water. Thank God! I found the kitchen and there it was, water. I quickly washed my face and rinsed out my throat. God, I was able to breathe a bit. That was enough to keep me alive. As I was leaving the bank, I saw bodies lying in the street. As soon as I saw them I began to cry. I told myself "I don't want to die!" and I started to run. I ran and ran till I could see daylight and smell fresh air. I arrived near the port and waited there for a while. I was given a mask and I wore it! Then! No, not again! The second 110-floor building was collapsing and it made the most terrifying noise that you can imagine. I said, "Ok, this is it!" I thought that the other tall buildings were going to collapse as well under the effect of the WTC disaster. Again we were escaping, but where to? The only way out was to jump in the ocean!
There are no suitable words to describe to you the scene that I saw there. All New York was shrouded in smoke and people were running and crying. To survive and get away from the disaster I followed a group of people uptown 55 blocks. My clothes were torn and I looked terrible. After a long walk, I crossed over to Brooklyn Borough via Queens Bridge and reached home safely.
It was a miracle that I survived.
I could have died any time there but the weird thing was, I was only slightly injured, just a few scratches, that's all. I am so grateful to God that he gave my life back to me and that I am still alive. I once more learned the beauty of life. Of course, this is just a small part of what I experienced that day. What I saw was much more than that…"