9/11 'Dust Lady' dies of cancer
Updated | By Sune du Toit
The family of Marcy Borders first announced her death Monday on Facebook.
Borders, who was 28 at the time of the attacks, was just one month into a job for Bank of America in one of the Twin Towers.
As one of the towers collapsed, she took refuge in a nearby office building, where AFP photographer Stan Honda took a haunting photo of her completely covered in a thick layer of ash, which earned her the moniker of "The Dust Lady."
The air appeared heavy and a distraught Borders was shrouded in a cloud of dust and backlit by an eerie yellow luminescence.
"I can't believe my sister is gone," her brother Michael Borders wrote on Facebook, asking for people's prayers.
Her cousin Elnardo Borders wrote: "May God Comfort .us in our time of sorrow. My emotions are all over the place right now."
He later wrote: "She @ peace now!!!"
After the attacks, Borders spiraled into a decade-long deep depression and alcohol and drug abuse, though she eventually recovered after several years.
She lost her job at Bank of America, where she ignored repeated offers of a transfer.
She spent much of her time sequestered in her two-room flat, in one of the poorer parts of Bayonne, a bedroom community in New Jersey over the bridge from Manhattan. - AFP
Show's Stories
-
How much you need to earn for SA's most expensive private schools
Here is how much it would cost to send your kids to the most expensive p...
Breakfast with Martin Bester an hour ago -
WATCH: Celine Dion details health battle in heart-breaking new documentary
"I wasn't ready to say anything before, but I’m ready now..."
Breakfast with Martin Bester 2 hours ago