The Presidential Medal of Freedom is one of the two highest honors the United States can bestow on civilians, and the only one chosen by the President of the United States.. It is usually presented for contributions to the nation or great achievement in a person’s field. Anyone is eligible, and past recipients run the gamut of presidents, popes, and generals, as well as Audrey Hepburn, Ted Williams, and Richard Petty.
On May 22, 2026, President Donald Trump announced that he would posthumously award the Medal of Freedom to one of its most deserving recipients: 9/11 hero Welles Crowther, who saved at least 18 people from the South Tower.
The people he led to safety knew him only as “the man in the red bandana.”
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Crowther grew up in the New York suburb of Nyack, on the west bank of the Hudson River. As a child, Crowther noticed his father getting dressed for church and wrapping a comb in a blue bandana to carry in his pocket. It wasn’t long before Crowther’s father gifted him his own bandana, a red one—one that would immortalize the young man forever.
Ten years later, young Welles followed in his father’s footsteps and became a volunteer firefighter, as a junior member of Nyack’s Empire Hook and Ladder Company.
Fitting the red bandana, Crowther attended Boston College where he played lacrosse and graduated with honors with a degree in economics. On Sept. 11, 2001, Crowther was a 24-year-old equities trader working on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center’s South Tower.
Nine minutes after United Airlines Flight 175 struck the South Tower, Crowther called his mother and left her a voicemail telling her that he was alright. He proceeded down the stairs to the sky lobby on the 78th floor. There, he found 18 survivors of the plane’s direct impact between the 77th and 85th floors.
Carrying a badly burned young woman on his back, Crowther led the other 17 survivors down 17 floors to safety before climbing upstairs to find more survivors. He used his red bandana, which he kept in his desk, to help him breathe through the smoke and haze. Back on the 78th floor, Crowther assisted in fighting the fire, administering first aid to the injured, and organizing the evacuation.
After leading a second group downstairs, Crowther again ascended the South Tower to help survivors. He was last seen with FDNY firefighters before the South Tower collapsed. According to survivor accounts, as many as 18 people were led to safety by the man in the red bandana.
A mostly-completed FDNY application was later found in Crowther’s home.
“I see this incredible hero, running back and forth and saving the day,” said Judy Wein, who was led to safety by “the man in the red bandana. “People can live 100 years and not have the compassion, the wherewithal to do what he did.”
In March 2002, Crowther’s body was recovered alongside several firefighters and other emergency first responders. It is believed that they were setting up a command post in the South Tower’s lobby when the tower fell. Crowther’s family was unaware of his heroism until a survivor’s account was published in The New York Times, noting that she saved by a man in a red bandana.
In 2006, Crowther was made an honorary New York City firefighter. His alma mater holds the Welles Remy Crowther Red Bandana 5K Run and BC’s football team plays a Red Bandana home game with uniforms that honor their fellow Eagle every year. He’s also the subject of the Dropkick Murphys song “A Hero Among Many.”
Crowther’s red bandana is currently on display at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.
“He’s definitely my guardian angel—no ifs, ands or buts—because without him, we would be sitting there, waiting [until] the building came down,” Ling Young, who was led out of the South Tower that day, later told CNN.
“We are posthumously awarding Welles the Presidential Medal of Freedom,” President Trump announced at a rally in Rockland County, New York before bringing Crowther’s mother on stage. “I just want to congratulate his great mother in doing a phenomenal job in raising that young man. Boy, what bravery, saved those people and became a legend in a sense, nobody else would have done what he did. So he’s going to be getting the Presidential Medal of Freedom.”
“It’s such a beautiful thing that even 25 years later, Welles’ light still shines brightly,” Alison Crowther told the crowd.
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