Wilfred Amanfu
Ghana

"I actually saw people
dropping off from the first building."
Wilfred Amanfu in his new temporary office in Manhattan.
(photo John Aravosis)

On September 11, Wilfred Amanfu lost one of his best friends, a coworker and fellow Ghanaian immigrant named Japhet Aryee. Aryee was a track star in Ghana who came to the U.S. to study accounting and decided to stay. Yet, in spite of losing such a close friend that day, Mr. Amanfu's level-headedness in the face of danger saved his own life and the lives of countless strangers.

Mr. Amanfu remembers that morning, "I was walking straight to my boss's desk, and his desk was by the window," he says. "By the time I said 'good morning,' he didn't even say good morning back, and we heard a boom, and there was this big ball of fire out there. The fire kind of shot toward our building, and our building swayed back and forth. For the moment, I hit the floor, and I came back up and looked outside, and I saw a big hole on the building, Building One. Everybody who was looking outside said that's a bomb. At that time, all I knew was to get out of the place, so I started going outside." 

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