I saved a woman’s life on 9/11. 25 years on, we finally met

Stefan Horlacher was born and raised in Stuttgart, Germany, where he joined the French Foreign Legion before working for the government. In 1989, he decided he wanted to do something completely different and bought a book at the airport about Wall Street. He trained at a hedge fund before moving to New York in 1992. In 2008, he left New York and now lives in Las Vegas. On 9/11, Stefan saved the life of Debbie St. John, who was hit by debris from the aeroplane that hit the South Tower. Here, he shares what happened that day and how it felt to be reunited 25 years later. My office was two blocks away from the World Trade Centre (WTC). There were only a few of us in the office before 9am [the first plane hit at 8:46am] and I will always remember the vibration when the first plane hit. We couldn’t see anything through our windows, but my colleague from London called me a minute later and said: “Stef, something’s happened – a plane went into the WTC”. Shorts It was a mixture of curiosity and a desire to help that drove me towards the towers. I went across the street to a Borders Bookstore that was part of the WTC complex and it was already chaotic. These bodies were popping up in the plaza. We were just looking out through the window of the bookstore, shocked. It takes time to comprehend what’s really happening. I left, walking cautiously across the plaza at the centre of the WTC, and everyone was looking up. That’s the part I’ll never forget: all these people craning their heads up to avoid being hit. And as we’re walking, the second plane hit the tower. There was a massive fireball; all this aeroplane debris coming towards us, so we all started running. I saw this blade from the plane coming towards me and I remember thinking: “That’s it – this is the end for me”. It was so big and it was coming closer and closer, like it was about to land directly into my eyeball. I thought it hit me and then boom, the next second, this huge piece of the blade was about 50, 100 metres away, stuck in the asphalt. There was a woman who’d been running next to me lying on the curb. I stopped right away. She was not bleeding too much and seemed to be in shock, but she was naked as the blade had cut off her dress. There was chaos around us – people were running, getting hit with other debris, everyone was afraid – and she seemed ok but too shocked to move. I took off my shirt because I wanted to cover her up, but as I was wrapping her up, my hands ended up inside her body, in her intestines. The blade had completely cut her back open. It was gruesome; I didn’t even know what to do. Thank God she was in shock. Stefan worked two blocks from the WTC on 9/11 (Photo: Virginia Sherwood/National Geographic) All I could do was try to prevent her from being trampled by the people fleeing, while I was also in her guts and trying to protect her dignity. It was very difficult. Then, thankfully, a few other guys stopped on the other side of her to protect her from getting run over. I have no idea how long we were there trying to protect her. It could have just been minutes. But then an ambulance appeared out of nowhere – I think they were already on the move when the plane hit and were on their way to the hospital after picking some people up. He drove past, and I was just screaming and yelling for him to stop. Thank god he did. Then the really difficult part started – getting her onto the stretcher while keeping her calm. Whatever we tried to wrap her in – a towel, a blanket, a shirt – it wouldn’t help. Her intestines were flopping all over the place; how can you wrap that? It was incredibly difficult. At some point, we managed it and I continued my journey to help some other injured people. I saw a man with a big head injury and gave him my trousers to wrap the injury. I walked back to my office in my underwear and shoes, helping those I could, then cleaned up (I had the woman literally all over me) and looked for other ways I could help. I ended up at the downtown hospital and offered my assistance. I was a special forces medic but also could speak many languages and that’s what really helped in the end. I spent three days talking to confused people in German, French and Chinese who didn’t know what was happening. Some tourists couldn’t go anywhere and didn’t know why; I tried to help and barely slept. The woman would have been trampled if I hadn’t stopped. I can guarantee that nobody was paying attention to what was in front of them. It’s not that they didn’t care; they were just so frightened for their own lives and wouldn’t be looking down. And with her injuries, it wouldn’t have taken more than a wrong step or two to have ended her pretty quickly. She had no protection. I felt that it should have been me that was hit, not her. It should have been me that was hit, especially after everything she went through afterwards. You just don’t wish that on anyone. It took a while for me to find out anything about the woman I had sent off in an ambulance. I didn’t think she had survived but I hoped. I wanted to look for her but I had no clue where to start. A couple of weeks later, I started going to this bar by the downtown hospital and would speak to the one person I knew, a nurse. I bought him a beer and we talked about that day and he said, “You know what? I think I know who you’re talking about.” A week or so later, he confirmed it. He said that people who know her were looking for me, too. The skyline of New York City on September 11, 2001, after two aeroplanes struck the World Trade Centre (Photo: Hubert Boesl/AP) So I went to the hospital and a doctor brought me upstairs to see her. I saw that she was alive. She was screaming in her bed from the pain but she was alive. And I was so happy about that. I met her husband and her other relatives that day and they said they’d been waiting for me to show up. Greg, her husband, gave me my shirt back. But Debbie and I never met then. She was so heavily injured – she was the first to be hospitalised and the last to be released 18 months later, undergoing 50 surgeries during her stay – and I wanted to give her all the time she needed. I stayed in contact with her husband over email and then she emailed me a few years in and we would sporadically chat. But we never met in person. I hoped that we could at some point but I wanted it to be on her terms. I just waited. I never thought it would be 25 years later, let alone for a documentary. Debbie contacted me at the beginning of last year about the production company being interested in doing something and asked me if I’d be willing. I said I would be more than happy as long as she felt it was right – it was such a traumatic time for her and I wanted her to feel comfortable. When we met, it was the most amazing moment. The last time I’d been with her, she was lying on the ground and I was trying to save her. And here she was, 25 years on – alive and smiling, and with this whole life with her children. It was a real sense of closure for us to finally meet. A relief that I had done something good. I would always wonder about her and hope that she was ok, especially around the anniversary of 9/11. And here was this chance to really feel that she is doing well and not just surviving. It was like closure. Now we can start to breathe again. 9/11 REUNITED streams now on Disney+ and airs on National Geographic on Friday 11 September from 8pm