I am 23 years old and live in Sydney Australia. Sydney saw the live footage at 1.30am Wednesday morning on our televisions.

I was home sick from the preschool where I was undertaking my teaching practice for university. I was eating coffee and toast for breakfast at 9am Wednesday in the kitchen and thought I would move into my loungeroom and see what was on offer on television. I turned on the television and saw a building on fire. And flames exploding and my first thoughts were, that it was too early for a Bruce Willis action movie to be on.

I changed channels to view what else was on and each channel I tuned to was showing the same images. It was not until I turned to Channe 10 that I saw the words “Attack on America” that I stopped and listened. As the news crew replayed the planes hitting and the voice over explained what had happened, I was suddenly ill.

I placed my toast on the table next to me and I did not eat another thing all day. I remained in front of the television in shock until my parents came home and we held each other for a long time and prayed.