Roselle

Michael Hingson with Roselle

On September 11, 2001, Michael Hingson and his guide dog, Roselle, were on the 78th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Michael had been blind from birth. Roselle, a Labrador Retriever, was his trusted companion, there to guide him each day. On Sept. 11, 2001, Michael arrived at the WTC Path Train Station from Westfield, NJ, preparing to host a seminar in their offices at 1 World Trade. He had ordered a big breakfast platter for his guests, and after setting up the conference room, he sat back down at his desk, getting ready for his presentation. Then, right at 8:46 a.m., a loud boom shook the building. A Boeing 767, American Airlines Flight 11, had struck the North Tower, cutting through floors 93 through 99 at a speed of 500 miles per hour. It was an instant inferno. Roselle woke up and looked around. It was clear to Michael that she did not sense any immediate danger. Determining that elevators were no longer safe, Michael and his colleague walked their guests to the staircase, came back and swept the office for any stragglers, and began making their way down the gruelling 1,463 steps to safety. In the staircase that morning, he recalls the distinct smell of jet fuel. As people filed into the stairway, it was a mostly quiet scene. They all kept to the right. There was no pushing, no shoving. And, though they still had no idea what exactly was happening, they knew their best chance at survival was to move forward, one step at a time. Michael recalls “All the way down the stairs, the fact that I kept telling Roselle what a good job you’re doing helped a lot of other people.”

Though tired, thirsty, and still in disbelief of what had happened less than 30 minutes prior, Michael, Roselle, and their five guests all made it out of the North Tower alive close to 9:15 a.m. When they got down to the lobby, both were met by a nearby NYPD officer — who warned them of the Towers’ imminent collapse — instructing them to run for cover. As they ran, Roselle guided Michael through the dust-filled streets of Lower Manhattan, eventually ushering him to safety inside a subway station. “She did exactly what she was supposed to do,” Michael said, reflecting that Roselle stopped by the stairs of the Fulton Street station to help them escape from the cloud of dust and debris after the towers fell. To this day, Michael says that Roselle was one of the most easy-going dogs that he had ever known. She played when she could, and worked when she had to. And she always took her job seriously. Looking back, Michael says he is grateful for his four-legged guide dog, the one who kept him and others calm, while guiding all the other people following her down 78 gruelling flights of stairs. Roselle lived until age 14. She died in the summer of 2011.