When Demczur arrived in the U.S., he didn’t have any knowledge of the English language. But he got himself a job at a company making custom-made windows, where he worked for about seven years until his boss (who went on to become his father-in-law) encouraged him to pursue window cleaning, instead, which he was told could make him better money. He cleaned windows uptown for a few years before being relocated to the World Trade Center, where he washed windows by hand.
“[The WTC] was a very nice place to be,” he said, reminiscing with a smile. “There was a lot of people speaking a lot of languages — and tourists from around the world.”
Devastatingly, on September 11, 2001, more than 2,200 of those workers, tourists and local New Yorkers died when terrorists crashed two hijacked planes into the Twin Towers. In a matter of two hours, One and Two World Trade Center collapsed, and not long after, 7 World Trade Center came down, as well. Over 2,800 people died altogether, including 343 firefighters, 23 police officers and 37 Port Authority police officers.
How Demczur saved lives with a window-washing tool
Demczur didn’t have an executive office or a prestigious title at the World Trade Center. He was there to do a job that most people would never have noticed unless something went wrong.
He was riding an elevator in the North Tower with five other men when American Airlines Flight 11 struck the building. The elevator plummeted 15 floors before the emergency brake kicked in, and the men eventually found themselves trapped around the 50th floor. Their elevator doors opened, but instead of a way out, they faced a wall.
What happened next turned an ordinary tool from Demczur’s job into an unlikely lifesaving device.
Demczur used the handle of his squeegee to cut through the elevator’s ceiling and eventually break through the drywall separating the men from an adjacent bathroom. The other passengers helped kick and punch through the opening.
The men managed to escape into the building and make their way toward the stairwell. They got out just minutes before the North Tower collapsed.
The squeegee handle Demczur used during the escape is now part of the Smithsonian’s collection, transforming an everyday object associated with a working man’s job into an artifact of one of the most consequential days in American history.
The survivors were reunited 25 years later
National Geographic’s 9/11: Reunited brings survivors back together with people whose paths crossed with theirs during the attacks.
