Welles Crowther, a 24-year-old equity trader, was one of the heroes of September 11. When the towers collapsed, he was among those brave souls heading back up the stairs to rescue others. 

 

But in the weeks before the attack, Welles, normally a glass-half-full kind of guy, had seemed, if not depressed, then certainly restless. He told his father he was thinking of giving up equity trading and joining the New York Fire Department. Both men were already volunteer firemen.

 

Looking over some old college photos just days before the attack, Welles said: 'Mom, I don't know what this means. But I do know this: I'm meant to be part of something really big.'

 

From here on, it was his mother who grew progressively more anxious, not her son. By the end of Monday, September 10, she was convinced something was dreadfully wrong and could barely control her panic.

 

On getting home, she tried to turn on her computer, but it short circuited and died. She went to bed, was unable to sleep and got up at 6am the next day to go to the gym. Walking over a bridge, she suddenly realised what everything that happened the day before all meant. 'I'm going to die today,' she thought. 

 

But it wasn't her - it was her son. Like thousands of others, she and her husband spent the next few days calling hospitals and praying. But she was also beating herself up for not having done something to save Welles. Why hadn't she realised what her panic and alarming sense of being blown apart had meant?

 

She fell into the habit of calling hospitals, desperately trying to find her son, in the middle of the night, when it was quieter. It was on the third night that she suddenly felt Welles was there with her. 

 

I was suddenly surrounded by a feeling of peace. I could almost hear him saying: "It's OK, Mom - it's OK." I knew then that Welles was dead, and I knew I wouldn't find him in hospital. His body was eventually found in March 2002, alongside firefighters and emergency workers who had been running a command centre in the lobby of the South Tower.