The Woman Who Wasn't There

Out of the ashes of the Twin Towers emerged a group of survivors. They had all been through hell and back, but one survivor in particular stood out as inspirational: Tania Head. Tania's devastating story of narrowly escaping death from the 78th floor of the South Tower, badly burned and crawling through carnage and chaos, is one of true courage and a fighting will to survive. But while she made it out alive of one building, her life was essentially taken away by the other. Her fiance had perished in the North Tower. Tania's remarkable tale of recovery and loss catapulted her to being the face of the tragedy, earning her the respect of victims' families, public officials like Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and Americans everywhere. Her story quickly traveled through the survivor community and in 2004 she became president of the World Trade Center Survivors' Network, tirelessly working to give the survivors support and a place of prominence in a post-9/11 landscape. But there was one problem with Tania's story that wouldn't emerge until September 2007, when a New York Times article blew the lid off of her seemingly miraculous tale: absolutely none of it was true.