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President Donald Trump honored deceased volunteer firefighter Welles Crowther – also known as the “man in the red bandana” – with the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Tuesday.
Speaking during Tunnel to Towers’ “Steel Across America” event in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, President Donald Trump praised Crowther, whose actions during 9/11 saved up to 18 people’s lives, sparking nationwide admiration and a series of documentary features on his bravery.
“Today we also remember another hero of 9/11. After the plane hit the south tower, a group of people on the 78th floor were trapped with broken bones, charred skin and eyes and lungs filled with black smoke. Death was all about them. It was certain they were sure they were going to die. Then suddenly a rescuer appeared. They call him the man in the red bandana. Have you heard that term? The man in the red bandana has become more famous than me. I don’t like it. Very unhappy. But he’s become much more famous than me,” Trump joked.
“He’s the man in the red bandana. He had found the only stairwell that barely survived. The stairwells were all knocked down. You couldn’t get by. Impassable. He found an opening in one of the stairwells, and the impact was so great there was no other way down but this one little opening, this one little hole. And [he] traveled down from the 104th floor to look for those trapped and dying,” Trump continued.
“When he heard cries for help on the 78th floor, he began extinguishing the fires, blocking the exit, directing survivors who could walk, of which there weren’t that many. He helped them out physically. They literally pulled him out toward the only working stairwell and carried those who couldn’t walk. And he just did things that people said were not even imaginable because they knew they were dead. They said, ‘we’re goners.’ One guy was screaming, ‘we’re goners! We’re goners!’ He didn’t know those he helped and, nor who would have known, but he willingly made all of these trips up and down, up and down, up and down, over and over again, saving life after life,” Trump added.
“That rescuer was a 24-year-old equities trader and volunteer firefighter from Rockland County named Welles Crowther. And Welles’ father, also a firefighter, great firefighter, had given him that bandana as a very special tribute when he was a boy. He probably knew something about his son. When asked why he always kept it, Welles replied ‘with this red bandana, I’m going to change the world. I’m going to change the world with this bandana.’ Little did he know, on September 11th Welles saved many, many people before losing his own life in the South Tower lobby. When the building came down, he was in the lobby and that building came down, thousands of tons of steel,” Trump said.
“Today, in honor of his incredible bravery and all of the other countless unknown acts of heroism that day, it is my privilege to award the very special, the highest honor that we give, the highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. We want to award that to Welles and the Welles family. Wells is up there looking down at his mom and his sister, his family,” Trump said.
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