Sept. 11, 2001, changed the country as we know it in an instant. On that morning, two planes struck the Twin Towers, and the search for survivors began. Firefighters and rescue crews dug through the wreckage in search of survivors.
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Genelle Guzman-McMillan was the last one found alive among the rubble, and her story is a reminder of both tragedy and resilience following the attack.
She was 30 years old at the time, working as an administrative assistant on the 64th floor of the North Tower for the Port Authority. When the building shook from the impact of the second plane, she and her coworkers raced to the stairwell to escape. Guzman-McMillan—who tightly held hands with her friend, Rosa—had lost the group on the way down the stairwell, and was left alone in the pitch black.
“When we reached the landing on the thirteenth floor, I let go of Rosa’s hand to yank off my heels. As I did, there was another loud explosion. The force of it knocked us backward. We heard a rumbling noise that grew louder and louder. Suddenly, everything went dark,” Guzman-McMillan explained, per All That’s Interesting.
At 10:28 a.m., Guzman-McMillan was trapped under the rubble of the North Tower. Her face was burning, her right leg had been crushed, and her head was reportedly pinned between two concrete pillars. The only body part she could move was her left arm. And just as she was beginning to give up hope, she prayed and thought of her daughter. “I was thinking I’m going to die. I knew I wasn’t going to get out. I’m preparing myself to die,” she expressed, per the outlet.
“I decided to pray. I just knew that I wanted to live because I wanted to see my daughter, Kimberly. She was 12 at the time. I just keep begging and praying, just asking God to show me a miracle.”
After a grueling 27 hours, on September 12, she heard someone calling out to her and felt a hand grab hers. She recalled the man who rescued her saying, “My name is Paul. Just hang on. They’re going to get you out of there.”
Doctors considered amputating her leg, however multiple surgeries saved it. Guzman-McMillan walked away with her life — and a permanent limp, per PEOPLE.
Her story has since been featured on Hulu in the ABC News special “Twenty Years Later: The Women of 9/11” and in National Geographic’s “9/11: One Day in America” series. She also shared the story of being pulled from Ground Zero —and the richness of life after tragedy — in her 2011 book, “Angel in the Rubble: How I Survived for 27 Hours Under the World Trade Centre Debris.”
And as a testament of her bravery, Guzman-McMillan didn’t run away in fear. Today, she still lives and works in the heart of New York City as a supervisor for the Port Authority at LaGuardia Airport, per North Canton. A well-known fighter and survivor, she’s also taken on the role of a motivational speaker.
“Honestly, I think that doing the anniversary every year…it brings a lot of comfort and peace to families. It’s something that’ll never go away, and it shouldn’t,” Guzman-McMillan told Robin Roberts during her ABC special.
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