It was an unforgettable photograph on a day of shocking images. Five men struggle to carry a man through the rubble after the first of the World Trade Center towers had collapsed during the 9/11 attacks. In contrast to the exhaustion and fear on the men’s faces, the man being carried seems at peace.
r Mychal Judge died as he lived, helping others. The Irish-American priest is recorded as victim 0001 of the 2,996 people who perished during the attacks on the United States 20 years ago this week, on September 11, 2001.
The priest, who was the chaplain of the New York Fire Department, had rushed to the scene after the first plane crashed into the Manhattan buildings.
He wanted to see what he could do to help, but died after the first tower collapsed. The photograph of him being carried away was taken by Reuters photographer Shannon Stapleton. Within minutes, it was being shared around the world.
The first plane hijacked by the terrorists crashed into the North Tower at 8.46am. Fire crews from all over New York were sent to the scene of what was initially believed to have been an accident. They were quickly joined by Fr Judge.
As the rescue efforts continued, a second hijacked plane crashed into the South Tower at 9.03am. America was under attack.
September 11, 2001, had started as a normal day for Stapleton. He had moved to New York in 1996 from his home in Ohio in search of work. The then 32-year-old had been freelancing for several years, but by 2001 had secured full-time work with the Reuters news agency.
That morning, he had been sent to cover a public relations job in Times Square.
“I was doing this gig and my assignment editor called and said, ‘Hey, can you get down to the World Trade Center? It’s been hit by a plane’. I said, ‘Well, I’m in the middle of the job right now. I’ll get down there as soon as possible’.”
But after seeing the footage of the crash on TV screens in Times Square, he knew this was no ordinary situation.
“I hopped in the subway train and it was really bizarre because there was nobody on it. Maybe a couple of people. It was a beautiful day in September and it was just really spooky,” Stapleton told the Sunday Independent last week from his home in New York. “I got out of the subway at Canal Street. I ran up and people were running the other way. I asked someone, ‘What’s going on?’ They said, ‘We’re under attack. The second tower has been hit’. So then I said to myself, ‘Wow, I’m about to cover maybe the most significant piece of history of my career, right in my backyard’.”
As Stapleton ran toward the World Trade Center, the South Tower collapsed.
“I raised up my camera, got three shots and ducked into a little bit of a vestibule to protect myself.
“After that, it was really smoky and there’s papers everywhere and you feel like you’re in this apocalyptic movie.
“It’s this crisp autumn day in New York and everybody is covered in ash. I’m making pictures and I’m making my way through down to the pit and stopping, making pictures, stopping, making pictures.”
When he reached the World Trade Center site, Stapleton climbed over a large mound of rubble. Using a long lens, he could see a group of five men carrying someone. It was Fr Judge.
Mychal Judge was born Robert Emmett Judge in Brooklyn in 1933, the son of Irish immigrants from Co Leitrim.
His father, Michael, was from the village of Keshcarrigan, while his mother Mary (nee Fallon) was from Drumkeerin.
The couple had three children: Robert, his twin sister Dympna and their older sister, Erin. Their early years were spent growing up during the Great Depression and life became even tougher after Michael died when his children were young.
To support his family, Robert would shine shoes at Penn Station in New York. He would also often visit a nearby church, where he came into contact with priests from the Franciscan order.
Impressed by their lack of interest in material goods, he decided the priesthood was to be his life. After entering a seminary, he took the name Mychal to stand out from all the other Fr Michaels. Following his ordination, he served in parishes in Boston and New York.
He suffered from alcoholism for a number of years, but overcame his addiction and began supporting others fighting a similar battle.
Fr Judge, who was gay — something he only shared with his closest friends — was also a great advocate for the gay community and others who faced prejudice and hardship.
He loved New York and was proud when, in 1992, he was appointed chaplain to the city’s fire department. He regularly attended emergency situations to offer support to fire crews. It was why he immediately made his way to the World Trade Center when he heard news of the first tower being hit.
Fr Judge is believed to have been administering the last rites to a firefighter at the scene when the South Tower collapsed at 9.59am. It was originally thought he had been struck by falling debris, but it was later established he had died of a heart attack. He was 68.
Stapleton knew the man he could see through his lens being carried by the five men was dead. “Unfortunately, I knew what a dead person looked like. He was definitely dead. It wasn’t like they were trying to save his life,” he said.
After finding Fr Judge’s body, four men — firefighters Zachary Vause, Christian Waugh, police officer Bill Cosgrove and Kevin Allen from the New York Office of Emergency Management — placed him in a chair. As they walked through the rubble, they were joined by John Maguire, who worked at Goldman Sachs in the World Trade Center.
As Stapleton took photographs of the group, one of the men shouted at him.
“I started shooting pictures and the fireman who I later met, Chris Waugh, was kind of yelling at me, but I was just in the zone, wasn’t paying attention. And I made those photos.
“They disappeared. They made it past me, and then I went further, deeper.”
Stapleton soon realised the danger he was in.
“Sometimes I say the digital camera may have saved my life because I looked down and I saw what I had of Fr Judge. I had no idea who it was, but I knew it was a pretty important photograph.
“As I looked down at the camera, I was thinking, ‘Wow, I have a lot of pictures here’. The adrenaline was still going but I was like, ‘I’ve got to get out of here before the second tower comes down’.”
He took refuge in a nearby Irish pub before making his way back to the Reuters office. Very soon, his picture of Fr Judge was being viewed in newsrooms across the United States and around the world.
Stapleton returned to the World Trade Center that evening and ended up spending several nights embedded with the rescue teams. His images continued to capture the horror of what was happening.
It took a few more days before the enormity of what had happened hit him.
“I was coming over to the 59th Street bridge,” he recalled. “I’m a big Jerry Garcia fan, and I’ll never forget listening to his version of Visions of Johanna, which is a Bob Dylan tune, and really crying, really sobbing. Finally letting out all this emotion.”
That day, a letter addressed to Stapleton arrived at the Reuters office in New York. It was from Fr Judge’s sister, Dympna Jessich.
“I get to the office and there’s this letter. I still didn’t even know who he [Fr Judge] was. But I found out that day that it was his funeral. And then all this stuff started coming out about Fr Mychal Judge, the fire department chaplain.
“The letter from Dympna and her niece said, ‘Shannon, thank you very much for taking this photo of my brother and our family member’. They said ‘Hopefully this image will show how heroic he was – and it will be a kind of legacy for him’. I just thought, ‘Wow’.”
The photograph allowed the world to find out more about the life of Fr Judge, and his legacy certainly lives on.
In honour of his connection with and love of Ireland, a Fr Mychal Judge Memorial Park was opened in Keshcarrigan in 2005. The opening was performed by his sister Dympna, who died earlier this year, aged 88. Their sister, Erin Judge McTernan, died in 2008.
Every year, on the Sunday before the anniversary of 9/11, friends of Fr Judge gather in New York for a remembrance walk that follows the route he took that day.
His story has touched so many people. A museum display is being created in his memory by the New York Fire Department. It will share an extensive archive of his life and work, collated by Fr Chris Keenan, who replaced him as chaplain to the fire department.
Gary Urbanowicz, the museum’s executive director, said it would be a fitting tribute to Fr Judge.
“Fr Chris began collecting everything and anything that was related to Fr Mychal after his death,” he said last week. “This included things as simple as photocopies of newspaper articles, all the way up to the Legion d’Honneur medal he received posthumously from the Republic of France.”
The world will this week remember Fr Judge and the other 9/11 victims on the 20th anniversary of the attacks.
Stapleton still works for Reuters. Last week, he was out photographing the catastrophic flooding in New York that has claimed at least 13 lives.
He has been back to the World Trade Center site to cover previous anniversaries, but he is not a fan of such occasions.
“I’m not one of those anniversary guys, to be honest with you, but I think 20 is a big one and I think about it every day — especially with what’s going on in the world right now. It’s almost eerie,” he said.
Although he never met Mychal Judge, Stapleton has a special bond with the priest.
“I’ve had hard times and there’s been times where I’ve said, ‘Hey, Fr Mike, can you help me out, man? Because nothing else is working’.
“I’ll never forget that face. That picture is etched in my mind.”
