25 years after 9/11: How heroic faith inspired conversion and hope in Christ

Imagine trying to make your way down more than 70 floors of a burning skyscraper while supporting the weight of a woman you barely know. For Paul Carris, that was the reality he faced on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

Carris worked for the Port Authority, and his office was on the 71st floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. That morning, before going to work, he had attended 8 a.m. Mass at a small chapel near Battery Park.

Shortly afterward, he was sitting at his desk overlooking Manhattan when he heard the roar of a jet engine. Before he could process what was happening, there was an enormous impact. Flames and debris began falling outside his window.

“The building tilted, and it tilted so much, books fell off my bookshelf, and for a split second, I thought it was gonna keep going over,” Carris told me in a recent interview. As people ran for the stairs, he noticed a woman in distress. Her name was Judith Toppin. She suffered from sarcoidosis and had a defibrillator in her chest. She was struggling physically.

At that moment, Carris made a split-second decision that would define the rest of their lives. Supporting her on one side, while she clung to the…