Woman who was the last 9/11 survivor to leave hospital recalls being saved by stranger
The woman who was the first 9/11 survivor to be admitted to hospital and the last to leave has recalled being saved by a complete stranger.
On Friday, it'll be 25 years since the devastating 9/11 attacks, which claimed the lives of 2,977 innocent people after 19 terrorists associated with al-Qaeda hijacked four commercial airplanes scheduled to fly from the East Coast to California.
It was the single largest loss of life resulting from a foreign attack on American soil, making it the deadliest terrorist attack in American history.
Now, survivor Debbie St John - who suffered catastrophic injuries from the attacks - has opened up about being saved by Stefan Horlacher, and what it feels like to be reunited with him 25 years on.
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"That day he decides to risk his life to save me. Who does that? It's the freaking apocalypse, and he decides to risk his life. It's hard to put that into words," she shared.
On her way to work as a consultant for American Express at the World Trade Center, the then 30-year-old exited the subway station under the Twin Towers to utter chaos in the streets.
"I just heard someone yell, 'Run for cover'," she said, speaking ahead of new documentary 9/11 Reunited about survivors who have been reunited 25 years on from the terrorist attacks, on National Geographic and Disney+.
Debbie, now 54, continued: "I believe the whole time my brain was saying, 'Survive, just survive'."
An ambulance then drove past but stopped after seeing Debbie lying on the ground, being held by a man - Stefan.
Stefan, a German bond trader who worked two blocks from the World Trade Center, recalled: "I saw this big piece of plane falling towards me. It looked like the blade of the engine coming straight down at us.
"I thought, 'This is going to hit me. I'm going to be dead'. But instead, it hit the woman running next to me. It should have been me, not her."
"Debbie was lying in the street and afraid, very afraid," he continued. "I knew I had to help her. You can't believe it. There's that beautiful woman just lying there, not moving. She was awake, but in shock.
"I said to her, 'My name is Stefan. I'm here to help'. I was trying to protect her from the stampede of people running past and the pieces of debris still coming down.
"There was not too much blood. It looked quite good. Then I saw that the blade had cut through her back. She was basically naked as her clothes had been ripped off."
Stefan then covered Debbie up using his own shirt.
"I noticed that when I tried to wrap my shirt underneath her, my hands went inside her body. What I was feeling were her intestines. Everything on her back was missing. How do you fix that?" he recalled.
Debbie had unfortunately suffered major internal injuries and blood loss with the attack, leaving her with punctured intestines, no skin and muscle on her buttocks and legs that were shattered from the knee down.
"I kept telling her, 'Don't fall asleep, keep your eyes open, I'm not going to let you go, stay alive'," Stefan remembered.
"It was just a crazy moment. She was in shock. Her big eyes were looking at me, and she couldn't move. I thought that she would die then. It's something you're never going to forget. It doesn't matter how prepared you may feel as a human being; you're never going to be ready for something like that. You're completely helpless. Those images are still in my head all the time."
Driver Orlando Martinez recalled: "She was being held by some guy. It was pretty heroic.
"I said, 'That’s someone's daughter. Maybe she has a kid. Maybe she's someone's mother. I've got to stop'."
Debbie was subsequently rushed to hospital, making her the first person admitted to hospital on 9/11 and the last to leave.
She spent a total of 18 months in hospital and underwent 50 operations in total, with staff miraculously managing to save her legs.
For over two decades, Stefan was left wondering what happened to Debbie and whether she even survived her injuries.
Debbie, who is now happily married with two daughters, has since been reunited with Stefan, who is also married with kids, for the documentary.
Stefan recalled the moment they met again after all those years as a 'magic moment', adding: "It was very emotional. It was a miracle that the reunion happened. I always thought, 'I want to meet her', but you also have to show respect."
He continued: "[During the reunion] I said to Debbie, 'I’m super-proud of you. Seeing how you looked on 9/11, it's just wonderful that you survived. You have achieved so many good things. You’ve married, you’ve had kids'.
"For me, it was an enormous sense of relief and closure. Something beautiful happened when we met again, and I felt like I had done something good."
Debbie thanked Stefan for his act of heroism, telling him: "I'm just so thankful and grateful that you're such a special person."
Stefan shared that, since their reunion, he and Debbie have stayed in touch.
"We text, we talk to each other, we send pictures back and forth. It's just like a super-close, family-type of friendship," he explained, adding: "It’s this extraordinary bond that no one else can understand.
"It's very different from a regular friendship. Debbie knows that whatever she needs, I'll be there for her."
He added: "She's an unbelievably strong person. That she survived is a miracle. I lost a lot of friends in the attack, but the fact that she survived gave me a positive attitude. Even though I was helpless, I helped someone and that made me feel good."
Debbie couldn't think more highly of the man who saved her life: "My hopes, my dreams, my possibilities are because of Stefan."
"I hold him on a pedestal. He's perfect. He can do no wrong," she added, resolving: "He makes me want to be better always, every moment, all the time. He is my saviour. Hands down."
Topics: News, Real Life, True Life, US News, Documentaries
Rhiannon Ingle