Michael Hingson: Blind 9/11 Survivor on Escaping the North Tower With Roselle

Michael Hingson’s September 11 survival story is extraordinary.

But after speaking with him, I think the most important part of his story began long before the first plane struck the World Trade Center.

It began with expectations.

Michael has been blind since infancy. He told me that when doctors discovered his blindness, they advised his parents to send him to a home for disabled children because they did not believe a blind child could become a productive member of society.

His father rejected that idea.

Michael grew up with a very different message: blindness did not determine what he could contribute.

Blindness was not the problem — expectations were

Michael learned Braille, developed an early interest in science and electronics, became involved in scouting, studied physics and eventually built a career in technology and sales.

One of the recurring themes in our conversation is that the biggest barriers he encountered were often not physical.

They were assumptions other people made about what a blind person could or could not do.

Michael described a job interview that was canceled after the employer learned he was blind, even though nothing on his résumé had changed.

That experience eventually helped shape the way he presented himself professionally.

Instead of hiding blindness as a perceived liability, he learned to turn it into an asset.

Working with Ray Kurzweil and early reading technology

Michael’s career intersected with an important period in assistive technology.

He worked with technology developed by inventor Ray Kurzweil that allowed printed material to be scanned and read by computer.

Michael helped place early reading machines around the country, trained users, studied how people interacted with the technology and contributed recommendations for future versions.

That work eventually led to a role with Kurzweil’s company.

Later, Michael moved into professional sales, entrepreneurship and technology management.

His career became a practical demonstration of one of his central arguments:

Blindness changes how a person performs certain tasks. It does not eliminate the ability to perform them.

Why he was working on the 78th floor of the North Tower

By 1999, Michael was working for Quantum Corporation and had been asked to open a New York office.

The office was located on the 78th floor of Tower One of the World Trade Center.

As the person leading that office, Michael believed he needed to understand the building.

He could not simply rely on signs or assume someone else would always guide him.

He spent time learning the complex, speaking with Port Authority police and fire personnel, understanding evacuation procedures and knowing how to move through the building independently.

He originally thought of that preparation as part of doing his job well.

Years later, he realized he had also developed a mindset that would become crucial on September 11.

8:45 a.m. on September 11, 2001

Michael was preparing for a series of seminars in his office with a colleague, David Frank.

At approximately 8:45 a.m., the building suddenly shuddered.

They heard a muffled impact.

Then the tower began to move.

Michael describes believing for a moment that they might be about to plunge 78 floors to the street.

When the building stabilized, his guide dog Roselle emerged from under his desk.

Michael called her to his side.

What he noticed immediately was her behavior.

She was calm.

She was not showing the fear she displayed during thunderstorms.

That information mattered to him.

“Slow down. We’ll get out.”

Michael’s colleague could see fire and smoke outside the windows and wanted everyone to leave immediately.

Guests in the office began reacting with understandable fear.

Michael responded differently.

He told the people around him to slow down and stay focused.

Because his colleague had seen fire, Michael also made a critical decision: do not use the elevators.

He directed the group toward the stairs.

Preparation had given him something that panic could not:

a plan.

Descending from the 78th floor

Michael and Roselle entered the stairwell and began the long trip down.

After several floors, Michael noticed an odor.

It took him a few floors to identify it.

It smelled like what he knew from airports:

burning jet fuel.

He told the people around him what he believed they were smelling.

That was when they began to understand that an airplane might have struck the building.

They still did not know the full scale of what was happening.

The firefighters were going the other direction

Michael told me that he reached approximately the 30th floor about 20 minutes after entering the stairs.

There they encountered firefighters climbing upward.

That slowed the evacuation because the firefighters needed space in the stairwell.

It took approximately another 25 minutes to reach the lower floors.

By the time Michael and Roselle were finally outside the World Trade Center complex, nearly an hour had passed since the impact.

And only then did the scale of the disaster begin to become clear.

Roselle, trust and teamwork

Michael’s bestselling book Thunder Dog tells the story of his escape with Roselle.

But I do not think this is simply a story about a guide dog leading a blind man out of a building.

Michael repeatedly emphasizes teamwork.

He knew the building.

Roselle trusted Michael.

Michael trusted Roselle.

His colleagues trusted his judgment.

And hundreds of strangers in the stairwell had to cooperate while firefighters moved toward the danger.

Leadership in that environment did not mean having all the answers.

It meant remaining calm enough to use the information available and keep moving.

The larger lesson

Michael’s story is about 9/11, but it is also about preparation, disability, technology, leadership and expectations.

He spent his life being told what blind people supposedly could not do.

He built a career anyway.

He learned a complicated workplace because responsible leadership required it.

And on September 11, the habits he had built over decades helped him respond to a situation nobody could have fully anticipated.

For additional DDSA coverage of the anniversary, read 25 Years After 9/11: I Saw the Pentagon Smoke and Remember How America Came Together.

You can also browse the broader DDSA Interview archive for more guest conversations.

Watch my full interview with Michael Hingson

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