Herlacher braved the falling debris and panicked people running through the streets to help her and was horrified to find the fragment had cut through her back. He waved down a passing ambulance driver who transported St. John to a hospital. She was the first 9/11 patient admitted and the last to be discharged 18 months later after 50 surgeries. St. John spent years working on her rehabilitation, marrying her fiancé, and having children, but she never forgot the man who saved her life.
“I remember speaking to Debbie on the phone and she said, ‘I’d love to meet Stefan,’” Jones recalled. “I asked, ‘Well, what would you like to do?’ And she said, ‘I want to take him horseback riding.’ Because she had such terrible injuries and couldn’t walk. She just said, ‘I want to show him how far I’ve come thanks to him.’ So we did that.”
Cmdr. Craig Powell was working at the Pentagon when the third plane hit, as was Lt. Col. Marilyn Wills. Wills had been in a meeting and recalled a fireball flying past and singeing her bangs. Trapped in the burning wreckage, Wills led a group of survivors down the corridor, crawling, because she knew there was a window there. The window was bomb-proof and initially wouldn’t open, but Wills and her commanding officer kicked until it popped open. They were on the second floor, so Powell and others on the ground below formed a fireman’s catch as people jumped, one by one.
“You get a second chance, live life.”
National Geographic/Virginia Sherwood
Debbie St. John and Stefan Horlacher are reunited: Stefan helped save Debbie when she was struck by a piece of the second plane on 9/11.
National Geographic/Virginia Sherwood
National Geographic/Virginia Sherwood
Debbie wanted to take Stefan horseback riding to show how far she’s come in her rehabilitation.
National Geographic/Virginia Sherwood
National Geographic/Virginia Sherwood
John Paczkowski, George Phoenix and Jan Demczur were stuck in a North Tower elevator together on 9/11.
National Geographic/Virginia Sherwood
Debbie wanted to take Stefan horseback riding to show how far she’s come in her rehabilitation.
National Geographic/Virginia Sherwood
John Paczkowski, George Phoenix and Jan Demczur were stuck in a North Tower elevator together on 9/11.
National Geographic/Virginia Sherwood
National Geographic/Virginia Sherwood
National Geographic/Virginia Sherwood
National Geographic/Virginia Sherwood
It was Powell who caught Wills, one of the last to jump to safety. He initially thought Wills was dead when he passed her off to a teammate for CPR. “In that situation, giving a person CPR [on site], I didn’t hold out much hope,” Powell told Ars, although he later learned she had lived. As for her second-story jump, “That takes a lot of courage,” he added, since it was the equivalent of a fourth-story jump from a regular building. He remembers being in considerable pain the following day—“catching all those people is not easy on your body, and I was inside the room when the ceiling came down”—as well as needing a shower. “I stunk, and it wasn’t BO,” he said. “When the shit hits the fan, so to speak, your body dumps all these endorphins; it’s literally the smell of fear.”