09/03/2026
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1V752m8FW4/
When the hijacked Flight 175 tore into the South Tower, he was running into the burning tower while everyone alive was running out.
Orio Palmer was a Battalion Chief with twenty years in the FDNY.
Before firefighting, he'd trained as an electrical engineer, specializing in elevator repair.
That background mattered more than anyone could have guessed.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Palmer arrived at the South Tower.
He found a working elevator and got it running himself.
He rode it to the 41st floor.
Then he started climbing.
Fifty pounds of gear on his back.
He'd earned the department's physical fitness award five times. He'd run the New York City Marathon, dedicating his first one to his infant daughter.
He climbed twelve floors in ten minutes.
By 9:32, he'd reached the 55th floor.
By 9:45, the 74th.
Along the way, he met Fire Marshal Ron Bucca, who'd climbed up from the ground floor entirely on his own.
They kept going together.
At 9:52 a.m., Palmer reached the 78th floor.
The impact zone. The exact place United Flight 175 had struck less than an hour earlier.
He was one of the only first responders in either tower to ever reach that high.
Over the radio, breathless but composed, he reported: "We've got two isolated pockets of fire. We should be able to knock it down with two lines."
Then, calmly, he relayed something else. Numerous fatalities. A sky lobby that had been packed with hundreds of people when the plane hit.
He kept directing efforts. Kept supporting the wounded he could reach.
The South Tower collapsed shortly after.
Palmer did not survive.
For four years, almost nobody knew exactly how far he'd made it. It wasn't until 2005, after a lawsuit forced the release of FDNY radio recordings, that his climb became public.
His brother-in-law, also a firefighter, described hearing the tapes for the first time as unnerving and sad, hearing Orio's voice, calm, still working the problem, floors above where help could ever reach him in time.
At home, his family remembers him differently. The "Music Man." A dad who invented fairy dances for his daughters.
A man who fixed an elevator, then climbed the rest of the way anyway, on the day the whole country will never forget.
Rest easy, Orio.
