Just a few minutes after United Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center, 24-year-old Welles Crowther called his mother and calmly left a voicemail: “Mom, this is Welles. I want you to know that I’m okay.”
Crowther worked as an equities trader at Sandler O’Neil and Partners on the 104th floor. After leaving that message, the man who had volunteered as a firefighter when he was younger went down to the 78th-floor sky lobby and became a hero to strangers, later remembered as “the man in the red bandana.”
Amid smoke, chaos, and debris, Crowther helped injured and confused office workers escape, putting his own life at risk. Those he saved remembered a tall figure wearing a red bandana over his mouth and nose.
He reached the 78th-floor sky lobby, a space with express elevators that lead to the ground. Using a strong and calm voice, Crowther guided survivors to the stairs and told them to help others. He even carried an injured woman on his back down 15 floors and then returned to help more people.
“Everyone who can stand, stand now,” he told the survivors. “If you can help others, do so.”
Survivor Ling Young said, “He is undoubtedly my guardian angel—no ifs, ands, or buts—because without him, we would have been stuck there until the building collapsed.” Crowther is credited with saving at least a dozen people that day.
His body was later found in a stairwell with firefighters as they carried the rescue tool back up the tower.