The woman covered in dust and debris in an iconic photo taken in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist in NYC attack has died.
Marcy Borders, 42, succumbed to stomach cancer on Monday night, her brother confirmed to NBC News.
Borders learned she had stomach cancer in August last year.
“At this time I need everyone to take the time out to pray for my sister, Marcy Borders,” her brother wrote on Facebook. “I can’t believe my sister is gone.”
Borders was captured in the iconic photo in the moments after terrorists flew 2 commercial airliners into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
Borders was only 28 when she took a job working at Bank of America on the 81st floor of the North Tower a month before the first plane hit.
She managed to make it out of the building safely before the North Tower collapsed sending up pillars of dust, powdered human remains and debris into the atmosphere.
She told the NY Post she ignored her boss’s order to stay at her desk.
When Borders emerged from the building she wasn’t prepared for the carnage she saw in the street.
“There were wounded and the injured” everywhere, she told the Post.
She ran as the North Tower collapsed in front of her eyes. A kind stranger pulled her into the lobby of a nearby building. Thats where AFP photographer Stan Honda captured the photo of her covered in debris. She was dubbed the ‘dust lady of September 11.’
“It was like my soul was knocked down with those towers,” she told the Post.
Borders said she started smoking crack cocaine to numb the memories of that day.
She checked into rehab in April 2011, where she heard about the assassination of Osama bin Laden by Navy Seals.
“The treatment got me sober, but bin Laden being killed was a bonus,” she told the Post.
On the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Borders told The Telegraph newspaper she avoided looking at her photo in the paper.
“I try to take myself from being a victim to being a survivor now,” she said. “I don’t want to be a victim anymore.”
