‘Mystery man carried me to safety as I escaped burning tower on 9/11 – I still don’t know who he was’ | News US

A woman has described the moment her ‘guardian angel’ carried her to safety as she escaped the World Trade Center in the 9/11 attacks.

LuAnn O’Rourke-Boyd, now 58, has never worked out the identity of the man who swept her into his arms on that terrible day, but credits him with saving her life.

The mum-of-three was working on the 30th floor of the North Tower when the first plane struck on September 11, 2001.

‘I was 33 on September 11, 2001, and I thought I was going to die,’ LuAnn, who had got engaged to her now-husband Steve just a month before.

She had arrived at work early and was sitting at her desk, going through her emails, when American Airlines Flight 11 struck the building.

‘I was thrown from my chair and released a scream by the sheer surprise and force of the moment,’ she said. ‘The building swayed left and right like a pendulum. I literally thought it was going to snap in half.

‘When the building stopped swaying, it started to shudder like an earthquake for several seconds, and then it finally came to a stop.

‘The only thought that went through my mind was, ‘I can’t believe I’m going to die like this. I can’t believe my life is going to end today. I have not accomplished everything I wanted to.’

LuAnn had initially been reluctant to move to the World Trade Center because she disliked subways, crowds, and heights.

However, the position with Empire BlueCross BlueShield came with a promotion and an office overlooking the Statue of Liberty and Hudson River.

‘I was starting a new chapter of my life,’ she said. ‘I felt like Melanie Griffith from Working Girl. I got my man, I got a great job with a really cool office, and I was living my dream.’

After the impact, LuAnn scrambled into the cubicle area, where a few colleagues who had arrived early were gathering.

She briefly returned to her office to collect her handbag and saw sheets of paper filling the air outside.

‘It was snowing paper,’ she said. ‘Hundreds and thousands of pieces of paper were coming down like snow.’

When LuAnn returned to the cubicle area seconds later, everyone had disappeared.

She entered the smoke-filled hallway and believed she was the last person on the floor until another employee emerged through the smoke.

They reached the stairwell, but the door was locked, forcing them to bang on it until somebody let them inside.

‘There were no emergency announcements,’ LuAnn said. ‘All of those fire drills and announcements, and there was nothing that day.’

LuAnn’s father, John Thomas ‘Jack’ O’Rourke, had been a New York City firefighter, and his warnings immediately ran through her mind.

‘My father’s words rang through my ears: ‘Never work higher than the 13th floor because the ladders don’t reach that high,’’ she said. ‘I remember thinking, ‘Note to self, listen to Dad next time.’ I also remember him always telling me, ‘Get out and get away.’’

Smoke filled the stairwell and burned LuAnn’s eyes, while water began flowing beneath the evacuees’ feet. She removed her high heels and continued down the stairs barefoot. Despite hundreds of people trying to escape, the crowd did not panic.

‘We moved methodically and slowly,’ she said.

It took LuAnn around 40 minutes to descend the 30 floors. At the bottom, firefighters and security guards ordered everyone to run. LuAnn stopped to put her heels back on after realising she was running across shattered glass.

As she bent down, she saw that the courtyard between the towers was on fire and ‘looked like Armageddon’. Suddenly, a large man swept LuAnn into his arms and began running with her. Still in shock, she started hitting him with one of her shoes.

‘I yelled, ‘What are you doing? Put me down’. He said, ‘You can’t stay here. Things are falling from the sky.’ What he really meant was people were jumping from the building.’

LuAnn still does not know who rescued her.

‘I have no idea to this day who that man was,’ she said. ‘He was tall and handsome and maybe worked in construction.’

LuAnn recently read about Secret Service special agent Tom Armas, who reportedly ran into the North Tower to help people after finishing a workout nearby. However, she cannot confirm whether he was the stranger who carried her.

‘Honestly, there were others who performed such courageous acts of heroism that day,’ LuAnn said. ‘I now refer to that man as ‘my guardian angel’.’

After he put her down, LuAnn headed for the west side of Manhattan. An older colleague, Iris Rodham, grabbed LuAnn’s arm and did not let go for the next hour.

‘For years, I couldn’t remember her last name, but I recently found it in an article that was published about my story back then,’ LuAnn said. ‘I still can’t find her, even knowing her last name. It’s possible she has passed away.’

Despite widespread disruption to mobile phone service, LuAnn’s phone had rung while she was still in the stairwell. Her sister Eileen had connected Steve to the call.

‘I could hear the panic in my sister Eileen’s voice,’ LuAnn said. ‘Steve was insisting on coming down to get me. I said, ‘No, stay put. You’ll never find me. I’m coming to you.’’

Steve worked in Midtown Manhattan, so reaching his office became LuAnn’s mission. She and Iris walked north as fire engines raced towards the World Trade Center.

‘Sirens to this day still haunt me,’ she said. At Chelsea Piers, first-aid stations had already been established, but they stood empty.
‘The victims weren’t coming,’ she said.

LuAnn and the other evacuees had been in the stairwell when the second plane struck the South Tower, so they did not yet realise America was under attack.
‘I looked at the towers and said to Iris, ‘I don’t think I can go back to work there tomorrow,’ as if that was even an option,’ she said.

Shortly afterwards, LuAnn watched the South Tower collapse.
‘To watch this tower fall and crumble into a massive dust cloud was truly devastating,’ she said. ‘It was like watching a movie in slow motion. This could not be happening. I was just there 30 minutes ago working.’

LuAnn and Iris walked approximately three miles through Manhattan before reaching Steve’s office. Although she escaped without serious physical injuries, the psychological effects continued long afterwards.
‘My sleep was tortured with nightmares of being in collapsing buildings,’ she said. ‘Sirens bring me right back. They still do.’

LuAnn also felt that survivors like her were overlooked in the aftermath.
‘I really felt invisible as a survivor and not taken care of by our company’ she said.

‘Today’s generation thinks we were off work for months and received therapy and compensation, but we received none of that.

‘We were put back to work as quickly as possible in offices throughout the tri-state area. I have not received one penny in compensation for what I went through or any counselling.’

LuAnn walked away from her corporate career shortly after the attacks, started a family, and ran her own small business. She and Steve went on to have three children, including their daughter, McKayla Faith Boyd, 23, whom they adopted from China.

McKayla, a champion Irish dancer, is now a first-year medical student at Penn State. Their son Ryan Patrick Boyd, 22, hopes to become a firefighter like his grandfather, while their youngest son, Thomas Edward Boyd, 18, is studying mechanical engineering at college.

LuAnn, who lives in Westchester County, New York, later discovered another unusual connection between her family and the World Trade Center.

‘The first World Trade Center bombing took place on February 26, 1993, and my daughter’s birthday is exactly 10 years later, on February 26, 2003,’ she said. ‘It’s just an odd coincidence.’

She tries to live her live to the full.

‘I’m a mum to three amazing young adults,’ she said. ‘I do what I love for a living, bringing Irish dance and culture to our community. I’m also a make-up artist for Irish dancers at competitions, and I recently became a certified pickleball instructor.’

Around 13 months after the attacks, police contacted LuAnn to tell her that her World Trade Center security badge had been recovered from the rubble. A hole had been punched through the forehead of her photograph.
There is a hole going through my forehead, which is a very grim reminder of how that day could have ended for me,’ she said. ‘I’m just so grateful to be here.’

LuAnn has returned to the World Trade Center site three times. Her first attempt was just days after the attacks with her colleague Lucille.
‘We tried to get to Ground Zero, but we couldn’t get close,’ she said. ‘We were just so traumatised and felt helpless. We wandered around the city looking at all the missing people flyers. We cried and prayed with strangers.’

LuAnn, Lucille, and Steve returned after Osama bin Laden was killed in May 2011, but could not reach Ground Zero because the president was visiting.

Her third visit came during the Covid pandemic when her daughter, who had won the US National Irish Dancing Championships, took part in a photoshoot for Irish Dancing Magazine. The September issue marked the 20th anniversary of the attacks.

‘I was able to briefly get closer to the memorial and reflecting pools,’ LuAnn said. ‘Ironically, the photo that was selected of my daughter was taken at Little Island, and you can see the Freedom Tower in the background. It was pure coincidence.’

LuAnn says she has now been invited to attend the Ground Zero anniversary memorial for the first time and is due to appear on NBC’s streaming coverage with Tom Llamas on September 11, 2026. She first recorded her story for TikTok in September 2024 after several earlier attempts ended in tears.

‘For many years after 9/11, I couldn’t talk about it,’ she said. ‘We never discussed it with our children, but I wanted them to know what happened, that I was there, and what America went through that day.’

LuAnn’s unrehearsed video received three million views and developed into a series about her experience.

‘I told people I was recording it for my children, and if they wanted to listen, that was fine – they could go chop some vegetables or something,’ she said. It was really off the cuff.’

LuAnn now hopes her story will help younger generations understand the human impact of September 11.

‘I just really hope that people remember what we went through,’ she said.
‘The patriotism in America after 9/11 was unsurmountable, and now we are so divided. The accounts of 9/11 are not being taught in school as a part of history, and that makes me terribly sad.’

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