“The pain doesn’t go away” for 9/11 survivor Rick DeSantis, who spoke to RT on the eve of the tragedy’s 15th anniversary, calling for a full investigation into the destruction of the Twin Towers.
DeSantis vividly recalls the “flames and the ball of fire” from that fateful September day 15 years ago, which still gives him nightmares even today.
“I think I only survived by the grace of God. When Tower One was hit by a plane, I proceeded to Tower Two to go inside. When I got to the doors of Tower Two, I heard the second plane… I turned around slowly… It seemed as though it was slow motion,” he told RT.
Almost 3,000 people lost their lives on September 11, 2001, as a result of a series of terrorist attacks in the US, with around 2,600 dying after two passenger planes slammed into the World Trade Center buildings in New York.
DeSantis witnessed the horrors first hand and helped to lead some of those caught up in the terrorist attacks to safety.
“I saw many, many things that day, and I saw the reactions that human beings take in situations like that. There are those that freeze and can’t move… and then there are those who go on autopilot like the firemen, who go straight into danger,” he said.
The 9/11 survivor, who is campaigning for greater healthcare for those affected by the disaster, also wants an independent inquiry to look into what actually happen on September 11 in more detail.
“The suffering has not stopped, not mentally or physically, and it is not going to stop. It has been 15 years. The pain does not go away,” he told RT.
“It is outrageous what we have gone through… the wars… Since 9/11, 57,000 factories have been closed in this country; $5 trillion have been spent and lost because of this, and we have had one illegal war after another. The questions, even the simplest of questions, have never been answered,” he said.
Alarmingly, DeSantis alleges that the authorities have tried to cover-up certain aspects of the terrorist attacks.
“How do buildings with 250,000 tons of structural high-grade steel, four inches thick, collapse at the speed of gravity and accelerating in its speed of collapse as it came down. There is only one way that can happen and that is a controlled demolition. I lived it, I was there and I heard the explosions, but it seems every time that you share this, it gets edited out.”
He believes the actual death toll was a lot higher than the official tally of 2,996 given by the authorities. He also mentioned that the fire at the site of the Twin Towers burned until March 2002, while two weeks after the accident, rescue services actually stopped digging “because they were hitting pockets of molten lava.”
Saudi connection
DeSantis was highly critical of it taking some 14 years to publish 28 pages of a 2002 congressional report on the 9/11 attacks.
The declassified documents, which were finally released by Congress on July 15 of this year, confirmed suspicions that the terrorists involved in the 9/11 attacks – most of whom were Saudi nationals – likely received support from high-ranking Saudi intelligence officers.
“If you have read these redacted 28 pages, you know there is a direct link with Saudi Arabia government official’s involvement… There is so much in the redacted 28 pages alone, to indict, to prove… that I demand that the remaining part be released. It is not a smoking gun; it is right here.”
DeSantis finds it staggering that Saudi Arabia was “granted sovereign immunity” despite so much evidence pointing in its direction.
“Since when do you afford sovereign immunity to a foreign country involved in terrorist attacks upon your country that kills tens of thousands, not just the 3,000 that they claimed that day, which I don’t believe as I think it was higher, but those who have died later from their injuries and their illnesses,” he said.