Sent back upstairs
Stanley Praimnath had already started to leave. After the North Tower was struck, he headed down from his office on the South Tower’s 81st floor. At the lobby, a security guard reassured him that his own building was safe. He went back upstairs.
Brian Clark worked three floors above him, on the 84th. The two men occupied different offices, but both would soon be searching for a way out of the same building.
An airplane at the window
In testimony to the 9/11 Commission, Stanley described looking out and seeing an aircraft coming toward him. He dropped the telephone and dived beneath his desk. The impact tore through his office; afterward, a wing section was lodged nearby.
Above him, Brian survived the impact and began descending Stairway A. A volunteer fire marshal for his firm, he carried a flashlight. On the 81st floor, his group encountered a woman urging them to go upward, away from fire and smoke.
Sources: American RadioWorks / American Public Media
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Someone heard him
While the others considered that warning, Brian heard a man calling from inside the devastated floor. Stanley was trapped beyond a barrier of wreckage. The flashlight gave him a way to direct Brian toward him.
Brian helped pull Stanley over the obstruction, and they fell together onto the floor. Stanley remembered Brian’s words: “Come on, let’s go home.” They turned toward the stairs together.
Choosing the stairs
Brian and Stanley continued downward. Others from Brian’s group went up and did not survive. In his testimony, Brian resisted judging them: people were making decisions with painfully incomplete information.
The two men escaped before the South Tower collapsed. Their survival joined two acts: Stanley kept calling, and Brian stopped to listen. Neither had set out that morning knowing the other would become part of his life.
Sources: American RadioWorks / American Public Media · National September 11 Memorial & Museum
Gratitude with questions
In FRONTLINE’s interviews about faith after September 11, Stanley understood his escape as God’s intervention. That conviction coexisted with anguish over firefighters, police officers, and others who died. Brian also spoke of God’s involvement in his life.
Their religious testimony belongs beside the account of the rescue. It tells us how they made sense of being alive; it does not explain why other people, including people of faith, were lost.
Sources: PBS FRONTLINE
A light worth keeping
A year after the attacks, Brian gave Stanley the flashlight that had helped guide them out. The Museum’s account preserves that small object as a reminder of their shared escape.
A flashlight cannot tell the whole story of that morning. Yet it gives this part of the story a human scale: one person in need, another close enough to hear, and enough light to take the next step together.
Sources: National September 11 Memorial & Museum
The sources behind this account
An original narrative drawn from the linked testimony and historical records. Religious interpretations are attributed to their speakers; the reflection questions are editorial.
- Flashlight symbolizes survivors’ journey to safety ↗National September 11 Memorial & Museum · institutional
- Stanley and Brian: testimony to the 9/11 Commission ↗American RadioWorks / American Public Media · primary testimony
- Voices of September 11: faith and doubt ↗PBS FRONTLINE · primary interviews
Sources reviewed September 13, 2026. Photograph credits appear beside each image.
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