Marcy Borders: The “Dust Lady” Of 9/11

Stan Honda/Getty ImagesThis photo of Marcy Borders showed Americans everywhere the horror of 9/11.

A number of photographs capture 9/11 in all its horrific, shocking detail. And one of the most famous is that of Marcy Borders, known as the “Dust Lady.”

Borders began her day by commuting to work at the World Trade Center. The 28-year-old took the elevator to the 81st floor of the North Tower, where she’d recently gotten a job as a clerical assistant with Bank of America.

Then, at 8:46 a.m., the hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 crashed through floors 93 through 99, just 12 stories above Borders’s office.

“My supervisor thought a small jet plane might have nipped us,” Borders later said, according to The Guardian. “We had no idea what was going on.”

Neville Elder/Corbis via Getty ImagesMarcy Borders holds the famous photo taken of her on 9/11 in January 2002.

As the building began to shake, Borders started to panic. “You felt the building shaking, you heard the explosion, you saw chairs coming out the windows, office supplies, [and] what I know now were people,” Borders said.

She joined the throngs rushing down the building’s staircase, as firefighters pushed past them to try to rescue people trapped on the upper floors. And just when Borders got to the bottom of the stairs, the South Tower collapsed, creating a plume of dust and covering Borders in soot.

“I took chase from this cloud of dust and smoke that was following me,” Borders explained. “Once it caught me it threw me on my hands and knees. Every time I inhaled my mouth filled up with it, I was choking. I was saying to myself out loud, I didn’t want to die, I didn’t want to die.”

Though Borders survived, she struggled with the trauma of the attacks. She later died of stomach cancer in 2015 at the age of 42, which could have possibly been partially caused by the debris that she inhaled on 9/11.

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