When the North Tower shuddered under the impact of Flight 11, chaos erupted. Alarms wailed, ceilings buckled, and smoke began filling the air. Most people did what instinct provoked - they ran for the stairs, desperate to escape.
But Frank De Martini and Pablo Ortiz chose differently. They ran toward the danger.
De Martini, an architect for the Port Authority, and Ortiz, a construction supervisor, immediately began working their way through the devastated floors. Together they kicked open jammed doors, pried loose twisted metal, and smashed through drywall with their bare hands. Survivors remember hearing their voices through the smoke: steady, calm, commanding.
"Come this way! Stay together! You can make it!"
One of those survivors, who had been burned by jet fuel in the explosion recalled later, "I could barely see, barely move. But then I heard these men telling us not to give up. They broke down walls to get to us. They held me up and led me to the stairs. I wouldn't have made it out without them."
De Martini and Ortiz led group after group down to safety. Then, instead of fleeing, they turned back. Again and again, they climbed into the wreckage, searching for anyone still alive.
By the time the tower fell, they had rescued at least fifty people. Their last known act was forcing open another elevator shaft to free those still trapped. When the building came down, they were still inside, still rescuing.
In a morning marked by terror and destruction, Frank De Martini and Pablo Ortiz stood as quiet giants. They had no capes, no cameras, no orders to follow, just a determination to act. Their courage bought dozens of strangers more years of life, more birthdays, more chapters in stories that otherwise would have ended that terrible day.
Twenty-four years on from those horrific events, how do we honor men like this?
The truth is that most of us will never face a burning skyscraper. But every day, we have opportunities, small but real, to make the same choice they did that day - to run toward need rather than away from it.
Jesus put it this way:
"Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13)
That call isn't limited to combat or crisis. It's the call to speak truth in a culture addicted to lies, to show mercy in an age of outrage, to offer hope where fear is selling fastest. It's the call to bear one another's burdens, even when they are heavy and costly.
Our world doesn't need more cynics watching from a safe distance. It needs more men and women willing to run toward the smoke - toward pain, toward brokenness, toward lost neighbors - with the rescue that lasts not just for a few more fleeting years, but for eternity…the rescue of Christ's love.
May God bless the memory of Frank De Martini and Pablo Ortiz, and all those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001.
And may He give us the courage to follow their example in a world still on fire.
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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Not the Bee or any of its affiliates.
