# 9/11: Long time survivors in the rubble? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 19, 2014, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-long-time-survivors-in-the-rubble/695918 "2014-08-19T17:45:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2014, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-long-time-survivors-in-the-rubble/695918/1 "2014-08-19T17:45:06Z")
I am trying to remember how long it was until the last living survivor was pulled from the rubble at Ground Zero. Which leads to the slightly more horrifying form of the question: were the remains of any long-time survivors found? It seems likely that at least a few people survived in pockets of the underground levels and may have had food and water enough to survive for… days? weeks? Was any such evidence of long-term survival found, and reported? ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2014, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-long-time-survivors-in-the-rubble/695918/2 "2014-08-19T18:31:35Z")
I seem to recall virtually no one was found alive in the rubble. ---
**Author:** ![Quidam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/ecae2f/32.png) [@Quidam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quidam)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2014, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-long-time-survivors-in-the-rubble/695918/3 "2014-08-19T18:44:18Z")
Two people, John McLoughlin and William Jimeno, were rescued alive from the rubble after 13 and 21 hours respectively. Both were Port Authority Policemen, and were found in air spaces next to a freight elevator. The 2006 film “World Trade Center” documented it. ---
**Author:** ![Strainger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/strainger/32/244_2.png) [@Strainger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strainger)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2014, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-long-time-survivors-in-the-rubble/695918/4 "2014-08-19T18:47:37Z")
No one’s answering the OP though. Were there any _dead_ bodies found where a medical examination indicated that they’d survived for some time in the rubble before dying of thirst, starvation, or suffocation? And if so, how long did they survive, if that was something that could’ve been determined? ---
**Author:** ![Strainger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/strainger/32/244_2.png) [@Strainger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strainger)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2014, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-long-time-survivors-in-the-rubble/695918/5 "2014-08-19T18:48:37Z")
Upon second read, I’m probably mis-stating the OP, though his question did make me curious about that. ---
**Author:** ![Quidam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/ecae2f/32.png) [@Quidam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quidam)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2014, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-long-time-survivors-in-the-rubble/695918/6 "2014-08-19T18:53:29Z")
No evidence has been found of bodies surviving the disaster for an extended period and then, say, starving to death. Some 9000 body parts have been found that have not been linked to particular individuals and over 1,600 individuals identified. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2014, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-long-time-survivors-in-the-rubble/695918/7 "2014-08-20T16:01:02Z")
> [@Strainger](#): > > Upon second read, I’m probably mis-stating the OP, though his question did make me curious about that. No, I read it that way as well. That’s the stuff of nightmares. But, I think when they started clearing the rubble, they didn’t think anyone would still be alive, so they just started cutting and pulling stuff apart. Any evidence of long term pocket survival ending after unendurable suffering from thirst and whatever other injuries the victim had, ending finally in long awaited unconsciousness and death, would have been likely lost. ETA: I’m sure there weren’t any in the WTC, but I wonder about people being trapped for days in rubble, hoping to finally be rescued, but it has been so long that the rescuers think everyone is long dead, so they just start pulling apart the rubble, and THAT kills the victim. Surviving the earthquake or whatever, a week or more trapped, only to be ripped bodily apart by a backhoe. Shudder. ---
**Author:** ![mcgato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac8455/32.png) [@mcgato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mcgato)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2014, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-long-time-survivors-in-the-rubble/695918/8 "2014-08-20T18:10:45Z")
With 9-11, there was quite a lot of time between the planes hitting and the buildings falling down. Almost everyone below the impact areas had evacuated the area before the buildings collapsed. I think that the only ones left were law enforcement and fire/rescue. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2014, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-long-time-survivors-in-the-rubble/695918/9 "2014-08-20T18:57:56Z")
Thinking about building collapses in general … If the building is not very tall, the debris doesn’t have far to fall. So it’s plausible that when it hits bottom it’ll do so “softly” enough to not be pulverized or to crush whatever random arrangements of lower wreckage may have made a pile containing a small empty space. To be a survivor, you need to start out on a low floor so you don’t fall too far & be smashed when you hit bottom. AND then you need there to not be too much stuff falling above you from too great a height so that the falling stuff doesn’t smash whatever small lean-to of debris is on top of you. Finally, you need the whole collapse to be small enough that the air isn’t completely filled with powdered concrete for minutes; your lungs won’t work with too much dust stuck in them. Nor will an expedient like breathing through your shirt filter out that much dust. Bottom line for 9/11: Given the total energy involved in that much building falling that far, it’s real unlikely any lean-to of debris withstood the rest of the collapse to leave a habitable space, much less that anybody happed to be in that habitable space, much less that they then survived breathing the dust-filled air for many minutes until the dust literally settled. Yes, there were the two folks mentioned above. But two out of many thousand sounds like about the right odds. Those two are almost certainly not the tip of an iceberg of hundreds of other immediate survivors who then expired slowly over the next hours or days. Longer-term survivors being trapped in building wreckage is something you see in frame house collapses, not in 100-story skyscraper collapses. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-long-time-survivors-in-the-rubble/695918/10 "2014-08-21T16:20:52Z")
There was a survivor after 17 days (and two others found after 13 and 11 days) of the [Sampoong Department Store collapse](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampoong_Department_Store_collapse) in 1995. :eek: As it was only a five-story building, it seems consistent with **LSLGuy** ’s post. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-long-time-survivors-in-the-rubble/695918/11 "2014-08-21T16:26:26Z")
Similarly, a woman was rescued from the [Rana Plaza building collapse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Savar_building_collapse) in Dhaka, Bangladesh, after 17 days. But that was only an eight-story building. ---
**Author:** ![sparky\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/77aa72/32.png) [@sparky\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sparky_1)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-long-time-survivors-in-the-rubble/695918/12 "2014-08-21T16:38:50Z")
Weren’t there really intense fires within the rubble of the Twin Towers? If so, I’d think it would have been impossible to survive any length of time. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-long-time-survivors-in-the-rubble/695918/13 "2014-08-21T16:42:03Z")
The construction of the WTC towers, IIRC, was a wide flat floor supported only on the perimeter and the central elevator column. When it started to go, it basically pancaked as the floor attachments broke off the columns because of being impacted by the weights above one after the other all the way down. There were not a lot of vertical concrete walls to create pockets, and the weight of 20 or 30 stories would pulverize those anyway. There’s the account of one of the survivors originally in the express elevator, that they had to pry open the doors and use a window washer’s tool (?) to cut their way through the wall in front of them into the men’s room, then run down stairs and out. the central column was mostly walled in thicker gyproc (drywall) sheets for weight control. So again, not a lot of sheltering vertical concrete like a 5 or 8 storey building, not a lot of 2-foot-square columns to keep the floor above off you after the collapse. As mentioned, the only known survivors were in the lower stairwells close to the ground. Perhaps it’s not comforting or perhaps it is, but likely all the people above the impact died of the heat of the rising fire or smoke inhalation (or jumped) before the towers collapsed. As for fires - the stuff was still smoking on the 28th when I saw it. IIRC - The search for the one bank’s gold held in a vault in the basement(?) found it but it had melted. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-long-time-survivors-in-the-rubble/695918/14 "2014-08-21T17:44:36Z")
Besides, any survivors would have been summarily executed by the thermo nanites that brought down the towers in the first place. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![GiantRat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@GiantRat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GiantRat)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-long-time-survivors-in-the-rubble/695918/15 "2014-08-21T18:40:05Z")
I worked on the recovery for several months (for a construction company). From the very beginning, one of the major challenges was balancing the knowledge that we needed heavy equipment to excavate and remove debris, but that there might be survivors who we would be crushing with that same equipement. We all remember the images of the valiant, but useless, “bucket brigades;” they figured prominently in discussions about the best course(s) of action. They were minimally damaging to the already unstable “pile,” but weren’t getting much done. In the meantime, if there were survivors, dehydration and traumatic injuries were putting them in increasing peril. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-long-time-survivors-in-the-rubble/695918/16 "2014-08-24T15:44:37Z")
> [@Quidam](#): > > No evidence has been found of bodies surviving the disaster for an extended period and then, say, starving to death. > > Some 9000 body parts have been found that have not been linked to particular individuals and over 1,600 individuals identified. And I pass them constantly, inasmuch as they are housed in the Medical Examiner’s facility on 1st Ave. and 26th St., near my apt. I wonder how long they will remain in limbo. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-long-time-survivors-in-the-rubble/695918/17 "2014-08-24T20:19:19Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > And I pass them constantly, inasmuch as they are housed in the Medical Examiner’s facility on 1st Ave. and 26th St., near my apt. > > I wonder how long they will remain in limbo. [They’ve actually been moved to the memorial.](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/11/nyregion/remains-of-9-11-victims-are-transferred-to-trade-center-site.html) ---
**Author:** ![JpnDude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/838e76/32.png) [@JpnDude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JpnDude)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-long-time-survivors-in-the-rubble/695918/18 "2014-08-25T04:13:23Z")
Channel 5 (UK) just aired a [documentary](http://www.channel5.com/shows/the-last-secrets-of-911) titled “The Last Secrets of 9/11”. It can be seen on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVh9WgGxuIY). > [@](#): > > **From the official site:** > With extraordinary access to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) in New York, The Last Secrets of 9/11 tells the story of the world’s largest forensic recovery operation after America’s worst terrorist attack. > > To date, almost 22,000 individual pieces of human remains have been recovered from the debris. Scores of scientists, specialist machinery and cutting-edge DNA identification techniques have been employed and more than 1,600 victims have been identified. However, of the other 1,115 there is currently no identifiable trace. Their families have no closure, no fragments of their loved ones to bury. > > The team at OCME continue to push the limits of science in their painful and painstaking work, but now the search for the final victims has become urgent. A decision has been made to transfer the 8,000 unidentified remains to a specially built repository next to the new 9/11 Memorial Museum at Ground Zero. This film follows the team as the latest phase of DNA testing draws to a close, and the families are left to absorb the news that there is no other way to test the outstanding remains.