The ‘dust lady’ of 9/11 dies: Iconic survivor Marcy Borders, 42, succumbs to stomach cancer which she blamed on ash from the Twin Towers attack
It became one of the enduring images that helped symbolize an unfathomable disaster.
Marcy Borders – the woman who was photographed covered in ash and pulverized concrete as she fled the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 – died on Monday.
The 42-year-old mother-of-two, who became known as ‘dust lady’ because of the iconicphotograph , succumbed to stomach cancer.
Her first cousin, John Borders, said his relative died of ‘the diseases that (have) ridden her body since 9/11’.
‘Dust lady’: This photograph taken of Marcy Borders after she fought her way out of 1 World Trade Center became one of the most enduring images of the 9/11 attacks. Borders passed away on Monday of cancer
Survivor: Marcy Borders, seen here in her New Jersey apartment in 2002, believed the dust and ash from the Twin Towers was the reason she came to contract cancer
Borders was first diagnosed with cancer in August 2014 and had been undergoing treatment, including chemotherapy, since then, according to NJ.com.
In November she said she believed the cancer was caused from the dust of the Twin Towers that completed covered her.
‘I definitely believe it because I haven’t had any illnesses,’ she told NJ.com.
‘I don’t have high blood pressure… high cholesterol , diabetes .’
Other family members, including her brother, Michael Borders, also took to Facebook to acknowledge her passing.
Michael Borders wrote on Monday: ‘I can’t believe my sister is gone.’
Marcy Borders, the woman who became known as the ‘Dust Lady’ following the 9/11 attack, died Monday from stomach cancer, according to her family
Borders suffered from depression and substance abuse in the aftermath of the terror attack, as well as lingering nightmares about September 11
Borders, from New Jersey, had only worked at Bank of America for one month and was late for work on the terror attack when she finally arrived at her desk.
‘I was picking the junk off the desk, getting ready to start my day,’ she told The Daily Mail in 2011.
‘That was then the plane hit. That’s when the building started quaking and swaying. I lost all control, and I went into a frenzy. I fought my way out of that place.’
Remarkably, Marcy remembered her supervisor ordering people to remain calm and to stay at their desks.
But she refused. ‘I was getting out of there,’ Border said.
‘Hundreds of people were trying to get out. My stairwell was badly damaged and we had to move stairwells, I was convinced we were going to die. I’m so glad I had the strength to get to the bottom.’
But when she got there, Borders was met with a scene of utter devastation.
‘There were wounded and the injured, it was too much for one to witness.
‘I saw people with things sticking out of them, covered head to toe in blood. I couldn’t understand it.
‘What I saw was carnage, and I thought, “God, I’m going to die anyway”.’
Borders then staggered onto the street, where worse was to come.
‘I heard a massive explosion and it was like a big bomb had gone off. I had no idea the tower had fallen,’ she said.
Terror: Although Marcy Borders managed to fight her way down a stairwell to the ground, 2,606 people died in the World Trade Center and surrounding areas in the September 11, 2001 attacks
Pedestrians run away as the North Tower of World Trade Center collapses after a hijacked airliner hit the building September 11, 2001 in New York City
Plume: Smoke rises over the New York Skyline from the scene of the World Trade Center Attack
Tremendous grey-white clouds of dust and gypsum gushed through the streets, and Marcy was coated in ash.
‘Everything was falling, there was debris everywhere,’ she said.
‘I tried to run straight out, but the Army grabbed me and held me back, because there was stuff falling.’
Then, out of nowhere a man grabbed her arm and led her to safety.
‘He took me toward a building to get shelter inside. That had to be when the photograph was taken,’ she says.
Borders didn’t even notice the photographer, Stan Honda from news agency AFP, and had no idea she’d been snapped until her mother called to say she had seen her daughter in a photograph.
The image would become one of the most recognized of the decade, appearing in Time Magazine’s ’25 most powerful images’ list, and even inspiring a song, ‘The Ballad of Marcy Borders,’ which became an Internet sensation.
Photographer Stan Honda sits with Marcy Borders in March 2002, six months after taking an iconic photo of her fleeing the Twin Towers attack
Borders then managed to catch the boat across to New Jersey and started walking to her home in Bayonne.
‘I got about five miles and this woman called Janet pulled up and offered me a lift,’ Borders said.
‘She drove me home and I took my clothes off and had a bath.’
In the aftermath of the attack, Borders herself became terrorized and a recluse and rarely left her apartment.
‘I drank a lot and never went out. It haunted me every day,’ she told The Daily Mail in 2011.
‘My life spiraled out of control. I didn’t do a day’s work in nearly ten years, and by 2011, I was a complete mess.
‘I was convinced Osama Bin Laden was planning more attacks. Every time I saw an aircraft, I panicked.
‘If I saw a man on a building, I was convinced he was going to shoot me.
‘I started drinking heavily. Then I started drinking a lot more. I couldn’t handle life so I started taking drugs.
‘I started smoking crack cocaine , because I didn’t want to live.’
Borders was unable to pay her bills or look after her children.
Her daughter Noelle went away to live with her father, and Child Protection officers arrived at her home to assess the living conditions of her son Zay-den.
‘I had given up on myself – stopped washing myself. I didn’t recognize myself when I looked in the mirror,’ Borders said.
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