Josephine’s injury saved seven firefighters’ lives (Picture: BOB GRAHAM)
Josephine Harris was struggling to escape the World Trade Center when six firefighters stopped to help her.
Years later,those men would insist it was her who saved them.
Despite an injury from a car crash months earlier, when American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center, the 59-year-old bookkeeper from Brooklyn made it down 50 flights.
Exhausted and struggling to go on,she was spotted by six firefighters from FDNY Ladder Company 6 on the 20th floor.
They were on their way back down after being ordered to evacuate following the collapse of the South Tower.
Josephine was in the North Tower when the building came down (Picture: Universal Images Group Editorial
Coming the other way were Captain Jay Jonas,Sal D’Agostino,Matt Komorowski,Mike Meldrum,Bill Butler and Tommy Falco,heading towards the impact zone.
It was when they reached the 27th floor that the South Tower collapsed at 9.59am,prompting the evacuation.
Heading down,they found Harris,barely able to continue because of her leg injury.
Thelma Johnson,sister of Josephine Harris,returning the jacket that firefighters had given her after 9/11 so it can be preserved and put on display (Picture: TNS)
Bill Butler put her arm over his shoulder and helped support her weight as they trudged towards the exit.
Eventually,on the lower floors,they stopped to rest between the second and fourth floors when Harris,exhausted,told them to go on without her.
Moments later,at 10.28am,the tower collapsed,but the staircase where they stopped was the only part of the structure that remained intact.
Jonas later said the North Tower ‘peeled away like a banana’ around the staircase.
There they were trapped for five hours before managing to attract the attention of rescuers – it became known as the Miracle of Stairwell B.
Harris returned to work after 9/11,but eventually had to give that up because of her injuries and lived in Brooklyn on disability support.
Following her death at the age of 69,Captain Jonas said it felt like losing a member of the family.
Josephine and the firefighters stayed friends for long after (Picture: Ringo ChiuCover Images)
The friendship between the bookkeeper and the firefighters lasted for the rest of Harris’s life.
Members of Ladder 6 presented her with an FDNY jacket embroidered with the words ‘Our Guardian Angel’ and regularly appeared alongside her at events marking the attacks.
When Harris died of a heart attack in 2011,aged 69,the six firefighters who had carried her down Stairwell B were called upon one final time.
They served as her pallbearers at her funeral.
