Kindle Notes & Highlights
On September 11, 2001, in the worst terrorist attack in the history of America, 2,977 people died.
It was a chance to draw a different picture and discover another self.
“I’m not really a fan of good-byes,” Welles said. It wouldn’t really be good-bye, as it later turned out.
It was the life he loved. There was no other purpose to match it, not the rush of the calls or the challenge of the rescues or the clarity of the mission. To serve.
That’s when she heard a voice and saw a man wearing a red bandanna. He was pointing people to the stairs and telling them he’d found a route to safety.
He left as if he was coming back. . . . It was hard to see. So I think maybe in some ways, I try to make it look neat when I leave my place. For him.”
A mysterious man appeared at one point, his mouth and nose covered with a red handkerchief. He was looking for a fire extinguisher.
Ling looked at the man she’d never seen before September 11, whom she’d last seen turning around to go back up the stairs to the blood and fire. The face. She looked at nothing more than the face. One word: Yes.
“They have such an attachment to that story,” O’Keefe said. “It’s become a symbol of strength and courage.”
“He called for fire extinguishers to fight back the flames. He tended to the wounded. He led those survivors down the stairs to safety, and carried a woman on his shoulders down seventeen flights. Then he went back. Back up all those flights . . . bringing more wounded to safety. Until that moment when the tower fell. They didn’t know his name. They didn’t know where he came from. But they knew their lives had been saved by the man in the red bandanna.”
Welles’s final choice was to help. The next time you see a red bandanna, remember Welles—and imagine what the world would be like if we all chose to be helpers.
