and we were thanking them. They were struggling up the increasingly hot stairwell carrying huge equipment. They were exhausted and we were trying to cheer them on." For some, in the last agonising moments of their lives, the mobile phone was used to establish final contact with their families. A New Jersey resident, Liz Emery, posted a message seeking information about her husband, Ed Emery, who worked on the 97th floor of tower two. The last she heard from her husband was a cellphone call he made just after the plane struck. "The building's been hit by something," he told her. "I love you." "Can you get out?" she asked. "I don't know," he replied. Then the line went dead. At least four of the 45 passengers on board United Airlines Flight 93, the Boeing 757 which crashed in a field near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, placed cellphone calls. In San Francisco, Alice Hoglan picked up her phone about 9.45 eastern time (13.45 GMT), 15 minutes before the plane crashed, to hear the voice of her son, Mark Bingham, 31. Mrs Hoglan told CNN: "He said 'We've been taken over. There are three men that say they have a bomb.'. "He said: 'I want you to know that I love you very much, in case I don't see you again.' He went on: 'I'm in the air.' He repeated that he loved me. Then he became distracted, as if someone was speaking to him. He said something to the effect that it