Welles Crowther

Welles Remy Crowther (1977 to 2001) was an American equities trader and volunteer firefighter remembered for helping survivors escape the South Tower of the World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks. Raised in Nyack, New York, he joined the Empire Hook and Ladder Company as a volunteer firefighter at sixteen, played lacrosse at Boston College and graduated with honors in economics in 1999 before taking a job at Sandler O'Neill and Partners on the 104th floor of the tower. After the plane struck, he led groups of badly hurt survivors to a working stairway and went back up to help others, and survivors later described a man wearing a red bandana. He was posthumously named an honorary New York City firefighter in 2006, and his name lives on in the Red Bandana Project and in the Premier Lacrosse League's Welles Crowther Humanitarian Award.