As 9/11 attacks collapsed his office, a blind man's guide dog helped him down 78 flights to safety

September 11, 2026, will mark the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks which collapsed the World Trade Centre and led to the loss of thousands of lives. It also marks 25 years since Michael Hingson's life was saved by his guide dog, who helped him escape from the 78th story of the north tower of the centre.Hingson, blind since birth, had heard a muffled explosion as he stood in the doorway of his office. "We probably moved about 20 feet," he recalled to PEOPLE. Across the room, his colleague David Frank held onto a desk. “David and I actually said goodbye to each other,” said the 76-year-old, “because we thought we were going to take a 78-floor plunge to the street. Meanwhile, Roselle, Hingson's guide dog, a yellow Labrador retriever, was asleep beneath his desk.Hingson remembered that as the building was righting itself, Frank shouted, “Oh my God, Mike, there’s fire and smoke above us. We got to get out of here — right now.” A regional sales manager for a computer-storage company, Hingson and Frank had been preparing that morning to lead a seminar when a jet hijacked by al-Qaida struck the World Trade Centre at 8:46 am local time.Initially, though, the scale of the terror attack w...