Security Guard Was Just Filling In on 9/11 When He Became ‘Guardian Angel’ to Panicked Survivors. Years Later, He Needs Their Help

Diane HerbstFri, September 11, 2026 at 12:30 PM UTC

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From left: Dereck Lovell and Sept. 11Credit: Dereck Louvell; Spencer Platt/Getty -

Dereck Lovell was working as a security guard for the first time on Doug Brown’s floor on the south tower of the World Trade Center when 9/11 unfolded

Lovell helped guide Brown and other trapped employees to safety

Brown now hopes to help his rescuer by spreading the word that Lovell needs a new kidney

On that fateful day nearly 25 years ago, the smoke moved toward Doug Brown in two layers — a lower layer “like dry ice smoke at a Broadway play,” he recalls, and a thick, darker layer above it.

Brown and five colleagues at Morgan Stanley were searching for a way out of the 70th floor of the south tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001 when they turned a corner toward the exits.

“The stairways were gone, literally destroyed,” recalls Brown, 79, now retired and living in Washington, D.C. “The ceilings were collapsing. There were flames you could see on the right-hand side of the building. I was literally scared to death.”

Minutes earlier, a second hijacked jet had slammed into the tower several floors above Brown’s office, where he worked as an associate national sales director. The complex’s north tower had already been hit by a first plane; soon, both would collapse and thousands would die.

The impact of the crashing passenger plane in their tower “made the loudest noise I have ever heard,” Brown says. “It was an incredible explosion. And it knocked me — I was shot out of my desk chair.”

Able to see only an arm’s length through the haze and unsure where to turn once discovering the destroyed stairs, Brown suddenly heard a voice saying “follow me” and saw the beam of a flashlight.

That voice belonged to Dereck Lovell, now 68, a security guard who was just filling in and had never before worked on Brown’s floor.

When the plane struck their tower, the force threw Lovell from his chair toward the elevator.

“It was like a wind that just picked me and whoever was in that general area up and threw us,” Lovell says in an interview from his Brooklyn, N.Y., home. “Like you see in movies when somebody throws a grenade and everybody flies up in the air. I hit my shoulder, but I was generally okay.”

Carrying a flashlight and bullhorn, Lovell had been directing workers toward the only usable staircase near his station. He then made a sweep of the offices when he heard Brown and Brown’s co-workers.

“They were confused. They didn’t know where to go,” Lovell says. “I said, ‘Come, follow me,’ and I got them to a staircase.”

It was only about 15 feet away, but Brown mistakenly thought it was a broom closet and had never known it existed.

“If Dereck hadn’t been there, I think best-case scenario we would’ve had dumb luck and found that stairwell,” says Brown, a married father of two grown daughters. “But in the dark and in that smoke, Lord knows what we would’ve done.

Doug Brown (left) and Dereck Lovell (far right)Credit: Doug Brown

After leading Brown’s group to the stairs, Lovell found three more employees, guiding them to safety before beginning his own escape.

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On the way down, Brown and another colleague aided a stranger they met suffering in the stairwell, the gravely wounded Silvion Ramsundar, an investment executive drenched in blood who had been on the 78th floor.

The pair fashioned a compress from a handkerchief to stem the bleeding from a wound above Ramsundar’s heart, then helped him down 60 flights and into an ambulance just minutes before the tower collapsed.

Doctors later discovered that a piece of metal the size of a playing card was lodged near Ramsundar’s aorta. He also had a broken collarbone and collapsed lung.

“I’ll always be thankful,” Ramsundar, now 56, previously told PEOPLE, “for what he [Brown] did for me.”

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Dereck Lovell went to Doug Brown’s New Jersey home in 2001 after the attacksCredit: Doug Brown

Days after the attacks, Brown and his colleagues wished to thank their rescuer and tracked down the mystery guard they credited with saving their lives, inviting him to Morgan Stanley’s temporary offices in Jersey City, N.J.

“Everyone hugged me,” Lovell says, “and thanked me.”

He and Brown have remained in touch for nearly 25 years, and Brown now hopes to help his rescuer by spreading the word that Lovell needs a new kidney.

Diagnosed with kidney cancer last September after previously facing prostate cancer believed to be related to 9/11 toxins, Lovell had both his kidneys removed in 2026.

He now undergoes dialysis three days a week while awaiting a transplant through SUNY Downstate and NYU-Langone, a process he says could take years unless he finds a donor some other way. (He notes that anyone interested in helping can reach out to either facility.)

Dereck Lovell (right) with wife Nathalie LondonCredit: Dereck Louvell

As he waits, the soft-spoken Lovell remains modest about his actions on Sept. 11.

“I don’t consider myself a hero, to be honest,” he says. “I did my job that day. That’s how I think about it.”

But Brown sees it differently.

“I’ve been breathing every day because of him,” he says. “The man who saved the day was Dereck. If ever there was a guardian angel, it would be Dereck.”

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Source: “AOL Breaking”