Victims who wouldn't usually be at the World Trade Center

I am from England and was 17 when 9/11 happened. I was in my city centre, shopping, when I started to hear about the attacks on a shop radio. I wasn't familiar with the WTC, having never been to New York, but it was obviously big news so I went home and wached on tv, I still find it completely unbelievable, unimaginable.

Despite being the other side of the world, 9/11 had a huge impact in the UK. I think it remains the deadliest terrorist attack in British history, in terms of the number of Brits who lost their life - 67 in total, more than the 43 Brits who died when Pan Am 103 was blown up over Lockerbie, or the 50 Brits who died in the 7/7 bombings. Despite growing up with the constant threat of terrorism from the IRA, this was different. The scale was impossible to comprehend.

The media in the UK naturally ran a lot of stories about the British victims and most were migrants who were from the UK but had settled in the US and become New Yorkers and worked at the WTC. But there were also a number who lived in the UK and who were only visiting the WTC... indeed, only visiting the USA... for a few days. For some reason their stories hit me really hard and it occurred to me that this, of course, was not just a British thing. There would have been visitors from all over the world, including other parts of the USA, who were only in New York for a short stay.

The conference being run by Risk Waters in Windows on the World was probably, more than anything else, the biggest source of this element of the tragedy. They had never previously hosted a conference at the WTC and had 71 delegates from all over the place, including different parts of the USA. Yet on that day, at that time, the attack would happen.

The story of Karlie Rogers is an example. She was only 9 years older than me, at 26, when she lost of her life. I am now 40 and think of all the things I have experienced in that time... getting married, having children, enjoying my friends, the holidays, building my career. That was all stolen from her. On Saturday 8th September, she went with her boyfriend Will to Heathrow to catch her flight, probably quite excited to be heading to a city like New York for a few days, and a venue like the WTC. He kissed her goodbye and never saw her again. She never took her return flight. She never saw the UK again. She never came home. It was just so horribly unfair.

And there are nearly 3,000 stories like hers. It remains so completely unimaginable.