Overview
- The president announced the posthumous award at a Rockland County campaign rally on Friday after Rep. Mike Lawler and other local leaders urged national recognition.
- The National September 11 Memorial & Museum says Crowther made multiple trips into the South Tower’s sky lobby to guide people to safety and that some accounts credit him with saving as many as 18 lives.
- Crowther’s red bandana, the identifying symbol survivors used to describe him, is preserved and displayed at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum in New York City.
- Alison Crowther, Welles’s mother, appeared at the rally and described the Medal of Freedom as a meaningful honor that keeps her son’s example of service alive.
- The award links long-standing local memorials and Boston College traditions to formal national recognition and signals attention to individual stories of heroism as the 25th anniversary approaches.