Medic's memories 'vivid' after treating 9/11 victims

"Everything was very hushed. The dust had the effect of deadening all sounds. It's like as if it was on a snowy day - you could hear voices but they sounded distant."

Doctor Sam Allen remembers the day of the 9/11 attacks vividly. He was one of the doctors who helped the wounded.

That day, he was on board a plane that had stopped to refuel at JFK Airport in New York when he witnessed the second plane hit the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.

"We saw a flash of what then turned out to be the second plane hitting the tower," he said. "The pilot then stopped the plane and said that 'I'm afraid there's going to be a delay because there's been a terrible accident'," Sam added.

Sam's stay in New York was only supposed to be a 40-minute stop to refuel on his return from an Amazonian expedition in South America.

When the 9/11 attacks initially happened, there was confusion and Sam, originally from Matlock in Derbyshire, said there was a fear that it could have been a chemical attack.

"There were rumours flying around that the cloud of dust there might have been a trap full of anthrax spores and other pathogens," he added.

But this did not faze him when there was an appeal for doctors and nurses to come forward.

Sam said: "We had trauma kits and I was carrying with me the medicines that you require in case of bio-terrorism."

In the end, this was not needed, and most of the people he treated were emergency service workers who had been at the scene.

"As we went there, we realised there wouldn't be any survivors from the people in the towers, but a lot of the fire crew and paramedics needed support because they were collapsing from exhaustion," said Sam.

In the end, he stayed in New York for 10 days before returning to the UK where he gave his account of that day to security officials who interviewed him.

He is now 60 years old and coming to the end of his medical career that has seen him specialise in treating tropical diseases, which he did in 2015 when he went to Sierra Leone during the Ebola outbreak.

Twenty five years on and he is living in West Kilbride in Scotland and he said those that died in the attack would be on his mind today.

"I think a lot about the fire crew who had gone in to help people.

"They're known as New York's bravest and a few days afterwards, I went in to visit some of the fire crews at the stations there to share with their bereavement," he added.

Having been through this, Sam said ordinary life could sometimes feel strange.

"It does feel like living in a parallel universe at times," he added.

"So I've got my regular life and my work in the NHS and my family, but every now and again, I might drift off and think about some of those memories from my time in the jungle and then those very vivid memories of those 10 days in New York."

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