Trump claims he was carried away by firefighters after 9/11, insists they thought the building was coming down, ‘gotta get outta here!’

Donald Trump‘s whereabouts on 9/11 are well documented. As per his own account, he was in his apartment at Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan watching TV when coverage cut to reports of an incident at the World Trade Center. He says he then looked out of his window and saw the second plane hit the tower.

Trump himself called into WWOR/UPN 9 News on 9/11, saying he saw “this huge explosion” from his window and describing his shocked reaction. During the call, he was also asked if there was any action being taken in Trump Tower. Trump didn’t indicate that he felt any danger, “there’s very little you can do about planes crashing into a building,” before pointing out that the attacks mean his building, 40 Wall Street, is now the tallest building in Manhattan.

Since then, Trump’s own account of what he saw on 9/11 and did in its aftermath has evolved. As per Newsweek, in April 2016, Trump claimed he personally helped clear rubble at Ground Zero, and that he sent “a couple hundred people down there” to help. That’s disputed by Richard Alles, a New York Fire Department battalion chief on 9/11, who Newsweek quotes as saying, “I was there for several months – I have no knowledge of his being down there … there would be a record of it.”

“We thought it was coming down on top of us!”

Now, while speaking at a “Steel Across America” event intended to honor 9/11 first responders and victims, Trump delivered a dramatic account of firefighters having to pick him up and dash away to escape a potential building collapse.

Trump claims that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 he was in the United States Steel Building, about half a block from Ground Zero. He said, “The United States Steel Building was creaking, really creaking, and we thought it was gonna fall down. It still creaks, but it never came down. And I’ll never forget two firemen. “

Trump went on to describe their frantic escape: “We thought it was coming down on top of us, and two firemen, big strong guys, and I’m not the smallest guy in the world. They grab me under the arms – gotta get outta here! They literally lifted me up. This is not easy to do. I’m big. They lifted me up and they started running with me. I said, ‘fellas, I can run myself.’ But they were amazing. But they thought it was coming down.”

At various other times, Trump has insisted he personally witnessed people jumping from the towers, despite being miles away by his own account. He also says he gave large charitable donations to the recovery effort, despite there being no official record of this happening. He also notoriously alleged to have seen “thousands and thousands” of American Muslims cheering on the attacks in New Jersey, though there is no evidence of this.