9/11 survivor describes being knocked out by force of Twin Towers collapsing

A Brooklyn man who narrowly survived the 9/11 terror attacks described in haunting detail how the force of the Twin Towers collapsing knocked him out cold on the street — as he visited Ground Zero Wednesday for the first time on the anniversary of that fateful day.

Dirk Delph, 50, of East Flatbush, was at work at M.S. Farrell & Co. on 67 Wall Street when al-Qaeda hijackers crashed jets into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Delph and a coworker were looking for their boss out on the street when the South Tower collapsed. He recalled standing on the corner of Liberty Street and Broadway when he was knocked out by the force of it.

“I’d taken three steps back towards the office when I was picked up and everything went blank,” Delph told The Post.

“It sounded like a jet engine. I didn’t see it, I just felt it. I was picked up and thrown, then I woke up on the sidewalk two hours later,” he continued.

“When I woke up it was black, everything was so black, you couldn’t see your hands in front of your face. You couldn’t breathe. It was so quiet. Day turned into night.

“When I woke up I thought it was what death looked like. Everywhere was black. I thought I was dead.”

Traveling to the site on Wednesday morning, Delph had a panic attack as he started to relive the horror of that day.

“It freaks me out every year. I’m terrified,” he said. “I’m not easily scared, but I’m scared to come here.”

The former investment banker remembered tripping over bodies as he staggered back to his office.

“I had cement dust in my mouth, in my nose, in my underwear. When I coughed or sneezed cement came out of my mouth,” he recalled.

Once he made it back to M.S. Farrell, a brokerage and investment banking firm, Delph ran into someone who gave him water to wash the cement out of his throat.

“I think because of that I’m still here, although I’ve been diagnosed with asthma and GERD [Gastroesophageal reflux disease] by the 9/11 clinic at Bellevue Hospital,” he noted.

Delph eventually walked toward home over the Manhattan Bridge. He was examined at  Brooklyn Hospital before being reunited with his loved ones.

“I created a panic on the bridge because every sound I heard sounded like another plane coming for us,” he said.

By the time Delph made it home, his brother had already called their family in Guyana to say he died in the attacks.

“We worked at the same job but he didn’t come to work that day. My brother already called our family back home in Guyana and told them ‘he tried to be a hero and he’s dead’ because I was gone for so long after the towers collapsed,” he explained.

But the nightmare had only just begun. The night after the attacks, he woke up in a panic after having an intense dream about a plane crashing into his building.

“I got up out of bed and ran outside in my boxers,” he said of the night terror.

On Delph’s first day back at the bank two weeks later, noise from the subway and construction made him think New York was under attack again and he twice ran around yelling, “the plane is coming.”

Now, over two decades later, he told The Post that he is still trying to get his life and career back on track after the trauma of 9/11 left him with serious anxiety and depression.

“My career collapsed like the towers. I’ve found it hard to work again, but now I’m ready,” he said.

“Since 9/11, I don’t like to be in tall buildings because you cannot see what’s going on outside. I like to do masonry work, construction, power wash, paint… painting is therapy for me. I like to be outside to observe and surveil [my surroundings].”

Delph is eager to return to work in order to provide for his daughter, who was born in 2013.

He also has a son, who was three years old on 9/11.

“I used to bring him here, to the World Trade Center, to see the fairs. I have pictures of him with Elmo outside the World Trade Center,” the doting dad said.

“My son helped me through it. I couldn’t take the therapy they sent me to because I kept reliving the moment. My son would distract me just being a kid, telling me about this car and that toy. He was my therapy without even knowing.”

Delph said it was the first time he had returned to Ground Zero on the anniversary of the attacks.

“There’s too many memories. I’m a grown man but every year I cry,” Delph said.

“It’s the thought of how close I came to death and everyone who came to work that day and never went home.”

This year, Delph said he was inspired to make the journey after he took his daughter to school that morning.

“When I got back home, something told me to come here. Something told me to get dressed and get on the train to brave it,” he explained.

“I’m trying to get my life back together.”