Antoinette Hurtado, the US Consul-General to Bermuda, revealed that the abject horror in her country after 9/11 convinced her to become a diplomat and help to make the world a better place.

She was a young student when the atrocities rocked America but even then she wanted to enter the diplomatic corps.

Ms Hurtado said: “I had a sense at college of wanting to work in the US Department of State and go into diplomacy, but it heightened for me [after 9/11] to go into public service and make the world a better place.

“I wanted to ensure through diplomacy or security that something like that didn’t happen again. So I graduated, then in September 2004 I joined the US Department of State. So now I will be 22 years in the diplomatic corps.

“I would never have imagined I would be US Consul-General to Bermuda. It’s a dream come true.”

However, Ms Hurtado is still haunted and hurting from the attack on her country by terrorists a quarter of a century ago.

She remembers only too well the horror of the planes crashing into the Twin Towers, the fear of the unknown and what could happen next.

Ms Hurtado also recalled that as a senior in college she and her fellow students were ordered to stay in their rooms until further news emerged.

She said: “I was a senior in college in Washington DC at Georgetown University and I woke up that morning and saw coverage of the news of the first plane hitting one of the towers.

“I was shocked, like everyone was, and we thought it was a tragic accident.

“I was thinking, 'How did that happen with all the controls there are in aviation?’

“We all watched the second plane hit the towers and at that point we all knew then that it was not an accident and that something nefarious was at play here.

“It was just sort of chaos and after that, in Washington, within an hour another plane hit the Pentagon and that news spread like wildfire.

“Everyone was trying to reach their loved ones.

“I was trying to call my mom and she was trying to call me from the Los Angeles area in California. But so many people were trying to phone home to loved ones that the phones were not working and that added to the fear of the situation and at that point it was very personal as it was happening in the city that I was living.

“It was frightening.

“You just didn’t know what to do and I never watched the news so much in my life.

“I could not peel my eyes away from the coverage to understand what had just happened. Why has it just happened?

“At that stage we were put in lockdown at college for a bit and told to stay in place, not to go anywhere and not to go into the city as the first responders were trying to handle the tragedy.

“There was a moment that we thought perhaps Congress and Capitol Hill was going to be hit so we were all told as students to stay in our dorms, stay in our housing … until more news was available and not go towards the city until we knew where this was going to go, and how it was going to end up.

“It was a very scary moment and frightening for all of us in Washington DC seeing this because New York was not far away.

“It was made even scarier as nobody could get in touch with their loved ones.

“I didn't know anyone involved but I had friends who had loved ones who did perish in the attacks.”

She added: “Every year it feels like it just happened and every year I feel the wound is fresh, for me and for so many people.

“So many countries had nationals working in the twin towers and nearly 3,000 people perished … all at once.

“It really impacted on how we lived. Our lives changed. How we operate or maybe how we thought on life and the structure of the world.

“I was terrified to take a flight after that and I don’t think I flew until probably going home for Christmas, so it was a couple of months later.

“In the aftermath you had to show everyone your bag and your shoes. We had to make sure it didn’t happen again.

“Last year was the first time that I actually visited the Twin Towers memorial. It is beautiful … and how peaceful it all is. It was so touching.”