On the scene

Dan Cohen, a producer for Fox News and also an emergency medical technician, raced to the World Trade Center disaster to treat victims, rather than report the news. The collapsing buildings, he said, forced the EMT units to flee the scene, leaving behind equipment and ambulances that would be buried in debris.

As the afternoon wore on, Cohen moved north to Chelsea Piers, where an emergency treatment center was erected on an old Law & Order set. Hundreds of medical personnel awaited the arrival of hundreds of casualties. They never came. "At 7 p.m.," he said, "there were over 600 doctors and paramedics and still no patients."—Allison Romano

Tom Werner, partner at Carsey-Werner-Mandabach, was originally booked to fly on American Airlines Flight 11. But a change in plans kept him off the doomed flight. Werner was in Boston for a meeting to discuss his interest in buying the Boston Red Sox, but the meeting was moved to a New York location. He drove to Los Angeles from Kansas, where his plane from New York had been diverted.

—Susanne Ault

Some media executives got closer than CNN to the attacks. Comcast chief Brian Roberts and Liberty Media Chairman John Malone were attending a meeting of the Bank of New York on the 49th floor of 1 Wall Street, just six blocks from the World Trade Center. Together, they watched the second plane plow into the tower. The meeting ended immediately, and the executives left. Afterward, Malone and Roberts started walking to midtown Manhattan. Roberts eventually flagged down a cab already crowded with refugees and piled in.

—John Higgins

Torie Clarke, assistant secretary of public affairs at the Pentagon and former spokeswoman for the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, was in the Pentagon when the plane hit but was not in the affected section and escaped harm. She later appeared on television introducing briefings. Clarke said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top military personnel stayed at the Pentagon all day on Tuesday, even though they periodically would have to change locations to avoid the smoke.—Paige Albiniak

M. Corey Goldman, a reporter for ABCNews.com, says the collapse of Tower 2 was first a rumble, then a roar.

"Sheer panic broke out as the building came down, with throngs of people screaming and running past him up Broadway," he recalls. "I made my way to a diner to call my newsroom. People had their hands over the mouths, their foreheads. Some were hugging, others sat in shock. Still others sobbed."

Then, as he searched for the words to give the newsdesk, Tower 1 came crashing down.

"The sound was even more bone-chilling the second time," he says.

—Ken Kerschbaumer