Who was Edna Cintron?

It has been 23 years since the tragic attack on the Twin Towers in New York, where 2,996 people lost their lives and nearly 6,000 were injured. As the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York commemorates the victims and honors the survivors, one person being remembered is Edna Cintron, often referred to as the “waving woman who never lost hope.”

In a haunting image, Cintron, 46, an administrative assistant at Marsh & McLennan, is seen standing near the edge of the North Tower, 93 stories high, desperately signaling for help. She was waving beside a gaping hole created by the impact of Flight 11, which crashed into the tower, leaving behind a scene of dense smoke and raging flames.

Disturbing photos from that day reveal many people attempting to escape, with some tragically jumping from the towers before they eventually collapsed. The waving from Cintron stopped at 10:28 a.m., the moment the North Tower crumbled, taking her life along with 2,995 others.

In a video, her husband “tentatively identified” her as the woman who waited at the edge of the impact site for 20 minutes, hoping to be rescued. However, another man, whose fiancée Karen Juday was also in the building, claimed that his fiancée, dressed in a black shirt and white pants, was the “waving woman,” not Cintron.

This claim, supported by details about Juday’s clothing, comes from a source known as “911 Revisited”. The chilling footage also shows Cintron and two other individuals fighting to survive. In the background of the video, the person filming can be heard sobbing, “David might be trying to call me… I will call you back.”

An obituary on Legacy.com described Cintron as a woman of “courage and strength.” Her husband, William Cintron, shared memories of their twelve-year marriage, reflecting on how they overcame homelessness and his battle with alcoholism. He credited her love and support for his sobriety, saying, “She made sure I stayed on track. She was a very strong woman who knew how to stand her ground.”