Mak Hanna was a Port Authority Engineer for the World Trade Center buildings. On September 11, 2001 he was in his office on the 88th floor of the North Tower when the first plane hit. Having extensive knowledge of the towers he, along with Frank de Martini and Pablo Ortiz (heroes who did not survive), guided many people towards the appropriate stairwells. The three men also climbed up to the 89th floor to help save a group of MetLife employees. Hanna assisted many other colleagues, including an 89 year-old man whom he carried down most of the way to safety. Mak was one of the last people to exit the North Tower before it collapsed.

Four years later Mak accepted the nomination to be a Coptic Orthodox priest. His survival of 9/11 has given him strength through which he continues to help other people.

Jan, a 48-year-old window cleaner of Polish-Ukranian background, came to America in 1980. He loved his job, particularly the people he met around the towers. Quiet-spoken, Jan was severely traumatized by the events of 9/11 and was initially reluctant to tell his story.

Traveling up in an elevator from the 44th floor, the elevator came to a halt moments after the plane hit the building. Jan (and the men he was stuck with) had no tools other than a window-cleaner’s squeegee and bucket. After Jan forced open the elevator doors with help from the others, he used the squeegee to hack through the wall in front of him, knowing it was only made of plasterboard. He eventually made a hole big enough for Al Smith to climb through. 

Like Jan Demczur, Al also worked for the Port Authority, working in a mail room on the 68th floor. In his late 50s, Al’s positive outlook on life and warm nature helped Jan and the others stay on top of the enormous challenge that faced them. His slim frame (he was the smallest of all the people in the elevator) allowed him to climb through the hole made by Jan. He found himself in a bathroom and from there was able to go down to the 44th floor where he met a firefighter. He and the firefighter returned to the bathroom where they collected the rest of the men and together they headed for safety.  

With his blue eyes and close-cropped hair, Jonas, 43, is a charismatic leader and former high school quarterback. A highly respected firefighter who has since been promoted to chief, Jonas intended to lead his unit, Ladder 6, up to the tower’s highest floors in search of people who were trapped. They got no higher than the 27th floor when they heard the South Tower collapse, and at that point, Jonas made the decision to go down. On the way, he and his men found a terrified civilian, Josephine Harris, sobbing on the stairs.

Helping Josephine down the stairs, Ladder 6 got as far as the 4th floor when the North Tower collapsed around them. Trapped with around a dozen other people, some of the firefighters were separated from each other, but remarkably Jonas’ team members were unhurt. Hearing the calls of dying men, Jonas was unable to climb past wreckage on the stairs to help them and for the first time in his career he found himself on the radio, calling to say he was stuck and needed help.  

A bookkeeper for the Port Authority working on the 73rd floor, Josephine, 59, had a trapped nerve in her leg, which prevented her from walking with ease. She got as far as the 20th floor when she felt she could go no farther and it was at this point that she was rescued by Ladder 6.

Trapped alongside the men of Ladder 6 in the dusty darkness, inside the remains of the North Tower, Josephine and the firefighters who had tried to help her were eventually pulled from the rubble in the middle of the afternoon.    

Clark, originally from Canada, was an executive vice president at Euro Brokers, a brokerage firm on the 84th floor of the South Tower. A family man and regular churchgoer, he was one of only a few people in either tower to escape from above the impact point. Clark joined Euro Brokers as a trainee broker in 1973, and by 9/11 was a senior manager – he was also one of the company’s volunteer fire marshals and played a key role in leading people down the tower’s only surviving staircase.

Brian and others had only gone a few floors when they met people coming up the stairs. These people told Clark’s group there was smoke and flames on the lower floors and that everyone should head for the roof. While an argument developed, Clark heard someone calling for help and he left the stairwell to venture into the 81st floor, the heart of the impact site. There he heard the voice of Stanley Praimnath who was stuck behind a pile of wreckage.

A loan manager for Fuji Bank, Praimnath (44) is an immensely warmhearted man for whom Christianity is a guiding force. Originally from British Guyana, he is married with two daughters who, on 9/11, were 8 and 4. One of only a few people to escape from the heart of the impact zone in either tower, Stanley saw the plane heading directly toward his office window.

Trapped behind smoldering wreckage that was soaked in jet fuel, Stanley crawled and stumbled toward the stairwells, all the time calling for help. When he saw the light from Brian Clark’s flashlight, he knew he’d been saved. Stuck behind an apparently insurmountable wall of wreckage, Brian had to urge Stanley to try to scramble over the barrier of rubble until eventually he succeeded. The two men embraced before Brian led Stanley down the stairs to the lobby, finally reaching the end of an incredible struggle for survival.

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