but were left stranded in the shafts, leaving their occupants to be burned alive in the fires or trapped and unable to escape before the towers collapsed. With the exception of one case, a locking mechanism prevented people from escaping from opening the doors on stranded elevators. One survivor recounted having to pry open a narrow gap between the doors of the elevator to escape by utilizing the stairs. Similarly, a group of six found themselves trapped inside a North Tower elevator from the moment of impact until 9:30 a.m., when they managed to escape by prying open the doors and tunnelling their way through the sheetrock wall of the elevator shaft behind, still leaving them with nearly an hour to spare until the building gave way. Deaths by jumping and falling As the fires raged inside the towers, numerous people plummeted to their deaths from the impact zones and above, landing on the streets and rooftops of neighboring buildings far below at speeds of almost —insufficient to cause unconsciousness during the fall but enough to cause instantaneous death upon impact. Out of the people seen falling from the World Trade Center, at least 200 of them came from the North Tower, with as few as three people spotted jumping or falling from the South Tower. In spite of the extremely small number of people seen falling from the South Tower, a secondary casualty was seen when one of these three landed on firefighter Danny Suhr as he prepared to enter the South Tower near West and Liberty streets, crushing his skull and killing him. Most of the people falling from the towers deliberately jumped to their deaths to escape the heat, smoke and flames, although some of them had not intended to jump, but lost their grip or footing when being near or outside of the windows or while climbing down the side of the towers from the impacted floors or above. A few people were observed trying to use fabric such as their clothing to slow their descent, but to no avail as the speed of the fall ripped their makeshift parachutes from their hands. The first recorded jumper was seen leaping from the 93rd floor of the North Tower at 8:51 a.m., only 5 minutes after Flight 11 struck the building. The three people spotted falling from the South Tower all came from the same window and