The past two years have not been easy. A lot changed in the world when American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 were turned into flying bombs and crashed into the World Trade Centre - especially for those of us who were there. I felt the brush of death that day. But for a matter of hours and a few city blocks, I would have been among the 2,792 people who died. At 8.48am, when the first plane hit, I was on my way to a press conference in Lower Manhattan, on assignment for this newspaper. When the aircraft exploded, I was close enough to see the smoke and flames and to hear the muffled sound of the impact. Flight 11 hit between the 97th and 103rd floors. A day earlier, I had been on the 106th floor of the same building, admiring the New York City skyline from the Windows on the World restaurant. By the time the second tower was hit by Flight 175 at 9.03am, I was already running towards the base of the World Trade Centre, notebook in hand. My decision to head to ground zero was really more of a reflex and I did not give any thought to what I might find when I arrived. With the benefit of hindsight, I may have joined the rest of the crowd and headed to safety. But at that moment, I had to be there to cover what I already knew was going to be a story of epic proportions. What I had not counted on was how ground zero would affect me as a human being. It was a scene of chaos: the buildings were in flames and thousands of people poured on to the streets. As fire consumed the buildings, people who had jumped or fallen from the top floors of the towers began slamming into the ground. The crowd screamed and pointed every time another body appeared and began to fall. I started taking notes and interviewing people, but soon found myself staring into the sky with everyone else. There was an acrid stench of burned electrical wiring. Police sirens wailed and more and more firefighters appeared. People were milling about in confusion. A man listening to radio reports of the attack on the Pentagon was yelling that the US had been invaded. I felt the panic begin to well up inside me in a way I had not felt since I was a young boy growing up on the Canadian prairies and saw what looked like a big mushroom cloud billowing up over the American missile silos in North Dakota. The cold war had scared me into thinking I had seen Armageddon, and so did standing on the street in New York watching all those people die. I was trapped in New York for 10 more days. I spent the time writing about the waves of anger and anguish that washed across the city, and how the tragedy brought out all that is good and bad about America. There were tales of tremendous heroism and compassion. Firefighters and police officers drove to New York from across the country to help search the rubble for survivors. There were also tales of greed and just plain evil. Looters prowled abandoned neighbourhoods and hoax reports of survivors were spread by people I can only regard as being sick. Looking back now, these stories were also about what I was feeling at the time, a rollercoaster of emotions that went from exhilaration at being alive to deep depression and even guilt over what I had seen. I began to think about the people I had seen helping the firefighters and police and wondered why I was scribbling notes and doing interviews when I could have been saving lives. These memories paint a vivid picture of why September 11 remains an open wound for me. Like many people who witnessed the attacks, I still find it hard to look at photographs of the destruction. I contributed a chapter to a book of essays on September 11, describing what it was like to be a Canadian who almost got in the way when terrorists were trying to kill Americans - but I still cannot bring myself to read what I wrote. I would like to say that September 11 is behind me. But it really isn't, and it probably will not be for a long time. I have been spared the nightmares, anxiety attacks and other more pronounced effects of post-traumatic stress that others who were in New York on September 11 have struggled with. I live a world away from ground zero, safe in Hong Kong with a family that supports me. But I feel a close connection with the people who suffer more than I do, especially those still holding out hope that their loved ones somehow survived. Working as a journalist, I have seen some of the worst things humanity has done to itself. I saw ethnic cleansing in Rwanda and the former Yugoslav republics, poverty in Central America and the devastation of Aids in Africa. September 11 was different. The other horrors happened in places I could leave behind. I could close my notebook and retreat back to North America where I would always be safe. The attack on New York took that feeling away. Doug Nairne is the Post's Deputy China Editor