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The sister of the famous “Falling Man” taken during 9/11 has revealed a devastating detail about her brother’s death in the lead-up to the 25th anniversary of the terror attacks.
The image that earned the name the “Falling Man”, has become a defining portrait of the 9/11 terror attacks, on that fateful day in September 2001, in which 2,977 people perished in the deadliest act of terrorism ever witnessed in the United States.
The picture distilled, in chilling detail, the final moments of Jonathan Briley’s life, as he plummeted towards the ground from the 106th floor of the North Tower.
The sound engineer, who had been working at Windows on the World restaurant, was captured suspended in the air as he took his last breaths.
His sister, Gwen Briley-Strand, was the next of kin who identified Jonathan from a series of photographs taken by Associated Press photographer Richard Drew, and has discussed her late brother a quarter of a century on from the devastating attacks.
“There are times when it feels like 25 years but, then again, there are times when it feels like yesterday,” she told the Daily Mail.
“It's a wave of grief. Some years are better than others.”
Gwen, now 72, revealed how Jonathan had asthma, and, ultimately, would have been quickly affected by not just the immense heat from the melting steel beams, but by the thick smoke from the resulting fires.
Jonathan, who died at the age of 43, was a New York University alumnus and devout Baptist who had just been ordained as a Deacon, having grown up with a Baptist pastor father.
Gwen also disclosed how her brother had surprised her and her husband on holiday, joining them in Florida, just a week before the tragic events of 9/11.
“It was such a gift of God that we could spend that time,” Gwen recalled. “We were right there on the ocean, and we would get up and have Kahlua and coffee and watch the sunrise. It was really special because he decided to join us at the last minute.'”
