On September 11, 2001, six firefighters from FDNY Ladder 6 were making their way down the North Tower when they encountered a woman who could go no farther.
Her name was Josephine Harris.
She had already made it down from the 73rd floor, but exhaustion had taken everything she had. The firefighters urged her onward, helping her descend the stairs.
Then she collapsed.
Harris reportedly told them to leave her and save themselves.
They didn't.
Instead, the firefighters stayed with her, refusing to abandon a stranger who needed their help.
They had reached the fourth floor when the tower began to come down.
For a terrifying moment, there was nowhere to run. The building around them was collapsing, filling the stairwell with darkness, dust and debris.
But they were in Stairwell B.
A small portion of that stairwell survived the collapse.
When the dust settled, Harris and the firefighters were still alive.
There is something profoundly moving about what happened that day. These firefighters had entered a burning skyscraper to save people they had never met. When they found someone who could no longer save herself, they simply refused to leave her behind.
And in an extraordinary twist, the decision to stay with Josephine Harris may have saved them, too.
Had they continued down the stairs at the pace they had intended, they might not have been in the surviving section when the tower collapsed.
Harris later became known as the “Angel of Ladder 6.”
It is a fitting name—not because she was responsible for what happened that day, but because her story reminds us of something that can sometimes be lost amid the enormity of September 11:
In the darkest moments, people still chose to help one another.
The firefighters didn't know what would happen next.
They simply knew they weren't going to leave her alone.
