Paige Fillion-Hornbacher was 8 1/2 months pregnant with her son Noah when two commercial airliners slammed into the World Trade Center just six blocks from their lower Manhattan apartment.
Once she realized the gravity of the situation, she set off on foot with her 2-year-old son northward through the city and away from Ground Zero.
Her husband, Scott Hornbacher--a producer on The Sopranos working in Queens--set off running across the bridge and then south through Manhattan.
Miraculously, he was able to find his family amongst the thousands of fleeing and disoriented New York residents.
Paige and Noah later participated in one of the many health studies conducted following 9/11, this one geared toward looking for any negative effect on women who were pregnant at the time of the tragedy.
Noah, now a healthy soon-to-be 10-year-old, lives with his parents and two brothers just outside Sierra Madre.
“For me, the most important thing I took from and that I remember about that day was the people of New York City,” Paige said in an interview with Patch. “It was amazing to see how everyone immediately came together to help each other in so many different ways.”
