A World Trade Center worker shown covered in ash in one of the enduring images of the September 11 attacks has died of stomach cancer.
Marcy Borders, 42, who became known as “the dust lady”, received her cancer diagnosis last year and blamed it on contamination from the pulverised buildings. “Did this thing ignite cancer cells in me? I definitely believe it,” she told her hometown newspaper in New Jersey last year.
Although no studies have proved that dust and fumes from the burning buildings caused cancer, the government added it to the list of illnesses covered by a $4.3 billion compensation fund in 2012.
A study by the New York health department the same year found that the incidence of thyroid and prostate cancers were higher among rescue workers who had been at the scene, but concluded that it was impossible to show a direct correlation. A smaller study by the city’s fire department found that cancer was 19 per cent more prevalent among firefighters exposed to debris than those who were not.
The deaths of three city firefighters from cancer all on the same day in September last year prompted Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York senator, to declare that “the health effects from 9/11 are far from over”.
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Ms Borders was working for Bank of America on the 81st floor of the World Trade Center’s north tower on the day of the attack. She survived by defying advice to stay at her desk, fleeing and sheltering in the lobby of another building as the south tower collapsed. “I heard a massive explosion and it was like a big bomb had gone off,” she said.
Stan Honda, a photographer for Agence France-Presse, took a single shot of her as she passed him fleetingly before a police officer directed her away.
Ms Borders, who overcame depression and an addiction to crack cocaine in the years after the tragedy, said in 2002 that she struggled to come to terms with the picture and the fear it immortalised.
“I really don’t like the image America sees,” she said. “I might have been asking God: ‘What do I do? What’s going on? What’s happening?’ People look at this picture and see elegance. I don’t see it.”
Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York, said: “Marcy Borders’ passing is a difficult reminder of the tragedy our city suffered nearly 14 years ago. NYC holds her loved ones in our hearts.”
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Ms Borders was 28 when American Airlines Flight 11 slammed into One World Trade Center. The trauma haunted her for years. “My life spiralled out of control. I didn’t do a day’s work in nearly ten years and by 2011 I was a complete mess. Every time I saw an aircraft, I panicked,” she told the New York Post after a stay in a rehabilitation clinic in 2011.
While she was in the clinic, US special forces shot dead Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.
“The treatment got me sober, but bin Laden being killed was a bonus. I used to lose sleep over him, have bad dreams about bin Laden bombing my house, but now I have peace of mind.”