On the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, Dan Proft shared individual stories of heroism and loss from that day. He revisited the story of Welles Crowther, the 24-year-old equities trader and former college lacrosse player credited with saving as many as a dozen people from the South Tower before it collapsed, drawing on a tribute produced by ESPN’s Tom Rinaldi. Proft also recounted the story of Marine veteran and Windows on the World chef Benjamin Clark, who by multiple accounts was working near Crowther in the South Tower helping a woman who could not descend the stairs on her own.
Citing information shared by Michael Dickson of StandWithUs, Proft told the story of Daniel Lewin, an American Airlines Flight 11 passenger and former Israeli military officer believed by the 9/11 Commission to have been the day’s first victim. According to that account, Lewin was seated near several of the hijackers and rose to intervene when they moved toward the cockpit, and was killed by a hijacker seated behind him. Proft noted that flight attendants Betty Ong and Amy Sweeney, whose composure while relaying information to ground controllers he had discussed in an earlier segment this week, radioed word that a passenger had been stabbed. Proft added that Israel is the only country outside the United States with a 9/11 memorial listing every victim by name, built using steel recovered from Ground Zero.
Proft also shared an account, relayed by Chris Hyland, a Democrat who served in the Obama administration, of Father Mychal Judge, chaplain of the New York City Fire Department and the first officially recorded death at Ground Zero. Proft described how Judge had celebrated a firehouse Mass the day before the attacks, telling firefighters their calling was fundamentally about showing up and doing their duty. When the first plane struck the North Tower, Judge ran toward the scene with firefighters, declining an offer to retreat to a safer location, and was killed when debris from the South Tower’s collapse struck him in the building’s lobby while he administered last rites to the injured. Proft described the widely circulated photograph of firefighters carrying Judge’s body from the site and its return to a nearby church, and cited a fellow Franciscan’s account that Judge died while in the act of praying for someone he was assisting.
For a firsthand account of that day, Proft spoke with Darin Kinder, a retired U.S. Secret Service special agent who was near the base of the South Tower when it collapsed and is the author of the memoir “Bury Me in a Dirty Suit: Discovering Man’s Valiant Purpose in the Aftermath of 9/11.” Kinder said he was in the Secret Service’s New York field office in 7 World Trade Center when the first plane hit, and that he and roughly thirty other agents evacuated and began treating injured bystanders on the street using first aid kits from their offices. He said the second plane passed close enough overhead as it struck the South Tower that he could feel the heat, and that he and two colleagues then ran into one of the towers to help people trapped in a stairwell.
Kinder described watching the South Tower begin to collapse while he stood near its base, recalling his immediate thought that he would not survive, followed by an instinct to run through falling debris and a cloud of dust and pulverized concrete that turned daylight to darkness. He said that was the first of what became at least two or three moments that day when he narrowly escaped death, including a second close call during the North Tower’s collapse after he returned to the site to continue helping the injured. Later, Kinder said he linked up with three fellow agents and, alongside a colleague with prior volunteer firefighting experience, improvised a firefighting effort using an undamaged fire truck at an intersection near the World Trade Center complex, working to contain the fires until professional firefighters could reach the area. Kinder said the Secret Service lost one member of his team that day, Special Officer Craig Miller, a Gulf War veteran and father of two young daughters.
Kinder, who retired from the Secret Service a little over a year ago, said he now runs a ministry and speaking practice called Fierce Faith, built around the themes explored in his book, which he described as centered on discerning and living out one’s sense of purpose. He said he speaks to corporate and faith audiences around the country, using his experience on September 11 as an illustration of a broader message about finding meaning and mission in life.