Lauren Manning

On September 11, 2001, Lauren Manning, a managing director and partner at Cantor Fitzgerald, arrived at Tower One of the World Trade Center. As she entered the lobby, the first plane was crashed into the tower. The jet fuel explosion found a direct path to the lobby and a wall of exploded from the elevator banks, burning Manning over more than 80 percent of her body. She ran from the building, engulfed in flames. Overwhelmed by agonizing pain, she made the decision to live, to return to her 10 month old son. When she reached the hospital, she was given barely more than a 10 percent chance of survival. She was unconscious for seven weeks as she battled dire infections, her lungs damaged from smoke and fuel inhalation, while undergoing dozens of surgeries. Upon waking she could barely move her limbs. On a ventilator for more than two months, she could not walk or eat on her own. She needed to relearn how to speak, and how to walk; through physical therapy she was able to regain use of her hands. Her long, slow recovery became a symbol for a nation still reeling from the terrorist attacks. In tribute to more than 658 of her coworkers at Cantor Fitzgerald who were killed, Manning battled to rebuild her life, in a decade long recovery that she recounts in her memoir, "Unmeasured Strength," published in September 2011.