A few weeks ago in Texas, a woman told me a survivor story similar to the one I had heard (and blogged about) in Florida last November. Her father-in-law worked on the 70-something floor of the North Tower and started walking down. Somewhere around the 40th floor he ran out of steam and stopped to sit and rest for a while. A firefighter walking up grabbed him by his shoulders and told him quite forcefully to “GET UP, KEEP WALKING DOWN, AND DO NOT STOP UNTIL YOU ARE OUT OF THE BUILDING!!!” Which he did. Such a small thing, but it saved his life. Like the woman in Florida, this man also would not know which of these 343 BETTER ANGELS saved his life.
These are some of the stories I wait to hear in New York. Six days from now…