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The woman whose dust-covered face became one of the defining images of 9/11 had her biggest fear come true years later.
Marcy Borders was just 28 when two hijacked planes crashed into New York City's World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
The attacks claimed 2,977 lives and left behind some of the most haunting images in modern history, from the second plane crashing into the South Tower to the clouds of smoke and debris sweeping across Lower Manhattan.
Among them was a photograph of Borders, covered from head to toe in dust after escaping the World Trade Center.
The picture was taken by AFP photographer Stan Honda and earned her the nickname the "Dust Lady".
Borders was working as a clerical assistant for Bank of America on the 81st floor of the North Tower when American Airlines Flight 11 struck the building 12 floors above her, hitting floors 93 to 99.
"My supervisor thought a small jet plane might have nipped us," she told the Jersey Journal 13 years later. "We had no idea what was going on. I began to panic.
"They tried to calm me down, told me to relax, take deep breaths, but the way the building was shaking, I couldn’t sit there.
"You felt the building shaking, you heard the explosion, you saw chairs coming out the windows, office supplies, what I know now were people," she said.
Borders ignored efforts to calm her down and instead made her way down the stairs.
During her escape, she passed people suffering from burns, lacerations, and impalements before finally reaching the street roughly an hour later.
But her ordeal was far from over, as when the South Tower collapsed, Borders found herself trying to outrun the massive cloud of concrete dust and ash that swept through the surrounding streets.
"I took chase from this cloud of dust and smoke that was following me," she told the Journal. "Once it caught me it threw me on my hands and knees.
"Every time I inhaled my mouth filled up with it, I was choking. I was saying to myself out loud, I didn’t want to die, I didn’t want to die."
A stranger eventually pulled Borders into the lobby of a nearby office building.
It was there that Honda saw her, completely coated in dust, and took the photograph that would become one of the most recognizable images of the disaster.
"This woman came in completely covered in dust. It was a strange sight," Honda later recalled. "She paused for a second, and I took one photo. It was just that one frame - I really only had time for that shot, then somebody took her upstairs and she was gone.”
Honda later tracked Borders down and was relieved to discover that she had survived.
Surviving the immediate horror of 9/11 did not mean Borders escaped its effects as she ended up suffering from severe depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and substance abuse.
She was reportedly tormented by a recurring nightmare in which Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the attacks, bombarded her home from the sky.
Despite living only a few miles from Manhattan in Bayonne, New Jersey, Borders returned to the city only once, when her eldest daughter, Noelle, graduated from middle school, and the family hired a limousine to celebrate.
Even then, Borders refused to get out of the vehicle.
Her experience reflected the enduring psychological toll described by other survivors of the attacks.
Janice Brooks, who was working on the 84th floor of the South Tower that morning, recently told VT that there was a moment after escaping when she believed she was going to die.
"After escaping the World Trade Center 2, I managed to get home. But it was the moments after the buildings collapsed that I thought about death," she said.
"I was in my apartment, with debris and black smoke filling the streets and covering my window. I just sat on the sofa and tucked my legs up like a little girl and cried. I thought that could be it.”
Brooks, now in her 60s, also recalled the extraordinary kindness she witnessed amid the horror.
"The overwhelming kindness I received from those around me. Everyone was so helpful, thoughtful, and willing to help. I saw both the best and worst of humanity, and the very best of people during 9/11. The kindness will always stay with me, and I think people should remember it," she added.
Throughout her mental health struggles, Borders also lived with another fear: that the toxic cloud of asbestos, glass fibers, and silica she inhaled and was covered in on 9/11 would one day make her seriously ill.
Her best friend, Mechelle Taylor, recalled that Borders spent years worrying the effects of that day would catch up with her.
In August 2014, her biggest fear became a heartbreaking reality when she was diagnosed with stomach cancer.
The survivor, who said she had previously been healthy, believed her illness was linked to dust she had been exposed to during the attack.
After a year-long battle with cancer that left her facing medical debt, she died in 2015 at the age of 42.
