VIDEO: 9/11 Survivor Joanne Capestro Reflects on Escape from North Tower in High Heels Donated to Museum
LOWER MANHATTAN — They were just shoes. Black slingback heels she slipped on that morning, never imagining they would carry her through hell.
“Everybody said, oh my God, she has on those high-heeled shoes. She’s never going to get out of that building. But I did. With my heels on,” Joanne Capestro said.
Capestro was working for the May Davis Group in the North Tower when the first plane struck, and in 20 minutes she ran down 87 flights of stairs. She took one step outside — and instead of sky — she looked up to see the South Tower coming down on her.
“I heard this roar, there was no time to think I just started running straight down the street and I see a priest. He grabbed me. He pushed me under the car. The debris started pouncing on the car that I was in. I was screaming so loud that I was knocked unconscious. But when I woke up, I really thought I died and went to heaven because the priest was still there saying the Hail Mary,” Capestro said.
The shoes pictured here around Capestro’s wrist now sit as one of many artifacts from that day inside the 9/11 Museum. The physical escape was only the beginning. What followed was a long battle — survivor’s guilt, PTSD and the aching question that kept her awake for years.
“God was with me that day. Thank God for the priest. Why did it he throw me under the car? Why was I the chosen one?” Capestro asked.
Capestro never did find that priest, but what she did find was an unshakable faith and a resilience that only came when New York — and New Yorkers — were rocked to their foundation.
“Some people lose faith, not me. God kept me alive, and I lost a lot of friends,” Capestro said.
Among the ordinary objects turned treasures by extraordinary courage inside the 9/11 Museum — Joanne found the answer to her burning question.
“It took many years for me to find my purpose in life. My purpose now is to educate the children that are being born now, that weren’t around when 9/11 happened. My purpose is to keep the 9/11 memory alive,” Capestro said.
Those black heels remain frozen in time — but the woman who wore them walks free. Joanne’s story is not just about surviving September 11th — but about her choice every single day to live — for all those who didn’t.