As we approach the 20th anniversary of the most devastating terrorist attack on American soil, we are reminded of the string of tragedies that occurred that day. Four hijacked planes. Two imploding skyscrapers. The home of the most powerful army on earth went up in flames.
Nearly 3,000 people died that day in plane crashes, collapsing buildings and desperate leaps from burning buildings. Still, such disasters tend to leave only a few people standing out as unlikely survivors.
As many as 200 people were crowded into the South Tower’s 78th Floor Sky Lobby – a transfer point between express and local elevators – when, at 9:03am, United Airlines Flight 175 sliced directly through it. Only a handful survived. Ling Young was one of them.
“I flew from one side of the floor to the other side,” Young recalls. “When I got up I had to push things off me. I can’t see because my glasses were filled with blood… I looked around and saw everybody lying there, not moving. It was like a flat land. Everybody was lying down.”
Next to Young was a man whose facial features had been shorn off his skull. Young herself had severe burns whose pain was muted only by shock. Then, she heard a young man’s voice.
“I found the stairs,” he said. “Follow me.”
Young recalls two details about the young man. First, he was carrying another woman over his shoulder. Second, he was wearing a red bandana. Young struggled to her feet and followed him down. At the 61st floor, the man put down his human cargo, told them both to continue down, then ascended back upstairs. He was never seen again.
For months, the hero who became known as the Man in the Red Bandana went unidentified, before he was discovered to be 24-year-old Welles Crowther, an equities trader at Sandler O’Neill and Partners.
