President Trump on Tuesday posthumously awarded the nation’s highest civilian honor to Welles Remy Crowther, an equities trader who rescued 18 people from the south tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, before being killed when the building collapsed.
“He just did things that people said were not even imaginable,” Mr. Trump said as he presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Mr. Crowther’s mother, Alison Crowther, and his sister Paige Crowther Charbonneau.
“Up and down, up and down, up and down, over and over again, saving life after life,” Mr. Trump added during a ceremony on the Ellipse, a park south of the White House, to honor emergency workers who responded on Sept. 11.
Mr. Crowther, then 24, had been working on the 104th floor of the south tower when United Airlines Flight 175 struck the building. The rescues he is known for happened on the 78th floor, where he heard cries for help while descending the building’s only working stairwell, and came to light in a 2002 New York Times article featuring multiple survivors who recalled having been rescued by “the man in the red bandanna.”
Two months later, Alison Crowther read that article and realized the man was her son, who had trained as a volunteer firefighter. His father, also a volunteer firefighter, had given him the bandanna that he used as a mask against fire and smoke while helping people escape the crumbling south tower that day.
On Tuesday, Ms. Crowther stressed that her son’s training as a firefighter had made it possible for him to rescue others that day.
“Welles would not have been able to do what he did as effectively on 9/11 if it had not been for the training and experience he gained as a member of Empire Hook and Ladder Company, No. 1,” Ms. Crowther said, referring to the volunteer company in Nyack, N.Y., that Mr. Crowther joined when he was 16. Other members of the company were in attendance for the ceremony on Tuesday.
“He was no longer an equities trader on 9/11; he was a firefighter,” she added.
In some cases, Mr. Crowther guided survivors who could walk to the remaining functional stairwell; in others, Mr. Trump stressed, he pulled people from the damaged building and carried them down the stairs. Mr. Crowther was in the lobby of the south tower, the president noted, when it collapsed.
Mr. Trump announced in May that he would be giving the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Mr. Crowther’s family. Representative Mike Lawler, Republican of New York, had been campaigning for that recognition. Mr. Lawler has also filed legislation to give Mr. Crowther a Congressional Gold Medal.
But Mr. Trump said he had decided to award Mr. Crowther the presidential medal long before.
“A while ago, years, I promised Mom and sister that Welles was going to get the Presidential Medal of Freedom,” he said, adding: “We didn’t forget. We never forget.”
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