Stanley Praimnath had already evacuated the South Tower on the morning of September 11, 2001. After American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower at 8:46 AM, Praimnath and about 20 of his coworkers left their office on the 81st Floor and made it all the way to the ground before they were told the South Tower was safe.
Hearing that news, Praimnath and his colleagues returned to their offices. A short while later, Praimnath got a call from a colleague at the Fuji Bank Chicago office. Panicked, this colleague urged Praimnath to leave the building.
That's when Praimnath happened to look out the window, towards the Statue of Liberty, and he saw something that terrified him: United Airlines Flight 175 was headed straight for his building.
"I saw the entire plane coming at eye level," he would later say.
Feeling helpless, Praimnath did the only thing he could think of. "And as I'm staring, I dropped the phone and said, 'Lord I can't do it, you take over' and I dove under my desk," he said.
Praimnath believes his prayer worked. If you watch footage of Flight 175 hitting the South Tower, you'll see it bank before hitting the building. Praimnath believes he would have died if it hadn't.
"It's like God pushed this plane from me," he said. The plane came to rest in his doorway, about 20 feet from where he was hiding. The 82nd Floor fell on top of his desk, and he was covered with rubble.
While Praimnath survived the initial hit, many of the co-workers who had initially evacuated with him did not. "All the people who came down with me on the first hand and came back were gone on impact," Praimnath said. His hearing had also been damaged by the sound of the impact and explosion, rendering him temporarily deaf.
Three floors above Praimnath was Brian Clark, a fire warden and employee of Euro Brokers. Their floor was also in the impact zone, and Clark led a group of people downstairs. There, they encountered a woman who said the stairs were impassable due to fire and smoke. Clark, along with most of the group, stopped their descent.
While they debated what to do, Clark heard banging and someone yelling for help. While most of his group ultimately headed back upstairs, Clark stayed behind to investigate the cries.
That was Stanley Praimnath.
Praimnath had crawled out from under his desk and through several offices until he reached a wall. There, with his hearing still damaged, Praimnath heard Clark telling him to knock on the wall.
"I said I couldn't breathe," Praimnath recalled. He then said to Clark, "I said, are you a Christian, and do you go to church? I said I have to know your convictions. I want you to pray with me. I said, 'Lord, I don't want to die. I want to see my wife and children.'"
After that prayer, Praimnath began knocking a hole through the wall. Eventually, it was large enough to climb through, but Clark had to pull Praimnath out.
Then Praimnath told Clark, "We have to get out. This building is going."
Soon, they found themselves on the 80th Floor, where they met a man who had broken his back. That man implored Clark and Praimnath to call his wife, whom he had recently married. They had a child, too. Calls to 911 failed, but Clark and Praimnath managed to call their wives, Diane and Jenny, respectively.
The pair also passed a man named Jose, who worked with Clark. Jose, walkie-talkie in hand, told them he was going back up to help people. Clark and Praimnath kept going down, and Praimnath said he had an urge to go to Trinity Church. His gut feeling that the South Tower was going to collapse was also driving him to get out as fast as possible.
Clark and Praimnath made it to Trinity Church before the South Tower collapsed. There, the men — who had never crossed paths before — exchanged business cards. They soon became close friends.
For his part, Clark thinks Praimnath saved his life, too. Hearing Praimnath's cries for help led Clark to separate from his group. They decided to go back upstairs, and none of them survived. It turned out there was a staircase — from the 80th floor down — that was passable despite all the damage to the South Tower. Praimnath's drive to get them from the building kept both men alive that day.
They were two of a handful of people who survived above the impact zone of the South Tower.
Now, 25 years later, these two strangers who — in Praimnath's words — became blood brothers that dark morning are still friends. They've both retired and watched their families grow up. Clark lives in northern New Jersey with his wife; they have 11 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Praimnath, 69, lives in Long Island where he's a pastor and a grandfather.
On Friday, the two men will remember that day. Clark plans to attend a memorial service in his New Jersey town while Praimnath will be at a Virginia church, telling his story.
Clark does that sometimes, too. "I don’t have to teach history anymore – the textbooks have that covered," he said to The Guardian recently. "What textbooks don’t have is the emotional reality, the optimism that life carries on despite terrible evil. But whenever I speak at schools, 98% of the time, the very first question the kids ask is: ‘Are you still in touch with Stanley?'"
Editor's Note: We must never forget those lost on 9/11 and the American heroes who sacrificed their lives to save countless others.
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