I don’t usually ask questions like this…

@Bumbles I agree. I think it is very nit-picky to call this suicide.

In fact, one can argue that jumping out the window just as flames are about to engulf you actually prolongs your life for a few seconds.

At any rate, I hardly consider this behavior to be "suicidal". Death is imminent, through no choice of the victim.

@Bumbles @DrWatson I had forgotten, but the idea was addressed. There was a film called "The Falling Man" made around that time about a photograph that captured one of the jumpers, and the photographer tried to find the identity of the person. He tentatively id’d the man as one of the chefs in Windows of The World, the iconic restaurant at the top of the North Tower. This man’s family was horrified and insisted that as a devout Catholic their loved one never would’ve jumped. I remembered wondering how they could possibly have imagined anyone’s reaction given such dire, terrifying circumstances.

@bijouxbroussard I hope that that family has since been counselled to understand what the church actually says about suicide.

Many Catholics are "more Catholic than the pope", because they have only a superficial understanding of Catholic teaching, in terms of "rules", without the underlying understanding.

@DrWatson Further research identified the jumper as a sound technician who handled the restaurant’s music system. This man was the son of a Protestant minister, who believed his son had "leapt into God’s arms" and saw it as the ultimate act of faith, not desperation.

@bijouxbroussard I like that!

@bijouxbroussard @DrWatson I’ve been to that restaurant. That’s chilling.

@Bumbles Indeed. I went with my mother in 1996. I don’t like heights, and I was uncomfortable during the elevators up. I couldn’t go to the windows and look out, either. It was a beautiful restaurant, and the food was delicious, but I felt better once I was back downstairs.

During the reports in 2001 when I heard people were jumping from that height, I was actually ill.

@bijouxbroussard Indeed, I can’t look at the footage. I probably never will.