My answer will not be popular and many will disagree but here goes. (Beware: long answer because I worked in NYC at the time and have spent a lot of time worrying about the poor jumpers).

First, the poor souls who jumped were almost all at their windows for a while. Most likely, the pain from the high heat forced them there and then, finally, out the windows when they realized they had to “take their chances.”

Second, I do not believe that when they made their exit they were giving up hope. It had been some time since the planes hit and they surely knew responders and fire trucks were on the scene. The ones who jumped knew that everyone was aware they were stuck at the windows.

I’m an intelligent person yet I know that, in that moment, I would NOT have abandoned hope. Our minds don’t work that way. We hope that *something* was figured out, or that someone had figured out the answer to the question, “How can people stuck in windows be saved”?”

Some on Quora will say “Oh, those people had to have known there’s no way people can be caught from that height.” To that, I say: I doubt the victims were running equations in their head about velocity, integrity of materials, or whether a rescue net could be used at a particular height/speed to catch jumpers.

If it were me, despite my overall intelligence, the fact that I was unable to breathe or being burned would have made me consider jumping in the hope that “the experts out there” (i.e., people other than me) had figured out how to make “some kinda high tech safety net” by now (and I just hadn’t read about it; why should I have) and maybe all the people below had things staggered, so maybe nets were placed at different stories.

It’s not like they could look down and see the lower heights of what they were jumping towards. I certainly wouldn’t have stayed to die.

It’s easy for us to dismiss this, saying “everyone knows a safety net can’t be used from that height” or to project our knowledge onto the ones in distress making a decision. But we should not assume what they were thinking or assume they were giving up hope. In fact, we are hard-wired to never give up hope, no matter what.

Personally, if I were in that window and needed to do something because I coudn’t breath or was being burned, some “hope” type things would have flashed in my mind.

I might have vaguely recalled a stunt with someone landing into a net after jumping from a plane or some “high tech stuff” would have flashed into my mind (they have all that bungee jumping and other stuff that works; maybe I will end up bouncing 50 times onto something before I can get off whatever material I am bouncing on?) Yes, I would have had hope that in a place like New York in the 2000’s, with all the brilliant minds, experts, and all the people below who were probably trying to help us….someone would have figured out “something”.

Yes, regardless of how “unrealistic” that would have been. I would have told myself “you can’t remember or don’t know the latest tech stuff or rescue stuff bc you never really read stuff like that, but hopefully someone has something in place below that will give me a chance to live.” I would have just tried to jump out enough so I didn’t hit the building on the way down to whatever attempted “catching” method was in place.

So, I believe those who jumped were not necessarily thinking, “Okay, I know I will die, but I choose this mode of death”. Hope is powerful and takes over. In fact many people subconsciously don’t believe they are going to die of old age (“maybe something will be figured out by then”). I have even googled cryo-whatever (freezing in case one can be brought back to life) a few times.

Oh and by the way, because I believe the folks who jumped had hope, those last 100 feet come quickly and they likely still had hope at the moment of impact.

I remember one time when I was parachuting in my younger years, there was a reckless instructor in Louisiana. He did a jump and what you’re supposed to do is….if you are 300 feet or so and you’re main chute isn’t working it’s time to pull the cord and set it free and pull the cord for your reserve parachute. (This was more than 25 years ago – things are structured different for some chutes).

Generally, people want to hold onto their main chute (at least back then) because it was a long rectangular type you could fly in gently, whereas the reserve chute was clunky and just deposited you on the ground hard (you’d tuck and roll). Plus…if you get rid of your main, you are now stuck with only one chute (the reserve) and it’s bad if THAT one doesn’t work either.

So this instructor was very stubborn (and later I learned…a drug user) and when he was about 300 feet above us, he was cussing and still messing with his main chute trying to get it untangled. We yelled for him to use the reserve instead and I swear he was under 200 feet when he finally gave in (cut the main chute free and pulled the reserve).

This guy was hoping to still fix his main chute when he was SO close to the ground that we could actually see his snarling expression. (Yes, he hit the ground hard but was fine).

Hope is strong. If I jumped and saw no rescue netting by the time I got to 200 feet, heck, I’d be hoping for Spiderman or some hero to save me and, yes, I’d actually think it was a real possibility, all the way to the end.