A man who was photographed among New Yorkers rushing to escape as the South Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has died from the coronavirus, according to family.
Stephen Cooper, an electrical engineer from New York who lived part time in South Florida, died March 28 at Delray Medical Center due to complications from COVID-19, according to The Palm Beach Post.
He was 78.
Cooper was among the first 138 people who died in Palm Beach County in the first month of the pandemic, and his passing was preceded by months of deteriorating health, according to a report by The Naples Daily News.
Associated Press photographer Suzanne Plunkett captured the historic moment, which shows the silver-haired Cooper, who was 60 at the time, and several other men fleeing down a Manhattan sidewalk as a colossal plume of smoke and debris round a corner toward them.
Cooper, shown on the far left of the photo, was delivering documents that Tuesday morning near the World Trade Center and didn’t fully realize what was happening until a police officer yelled, “You have to run!”
The photo captures a determined urgency in Cooper’s face.
He carries what appears to be a cellphone in one hand and a manila envelope tucked under his other arm. A law enforcement officer also appears in the frame running alongside with several other men.
Cooper later revealed he took shelter in a nearby subway station.
“He didn’t even know the photograph was taken,” said Janet Rashes, Cooper’s partner for 33 years, the AP reported. “All of a sudden, he’s looking in Time magazine one day and he sees himself and says, ‘Oh, my God. That’s me.’ He was amazed. Couldn’t believe it.”
The image was picked up by news media around the world and is also featured at the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York, the AP reported.
Cooper was proud of the photo, purchasing multiple copies of Time magazine and handing them out “like a calling card,” according to longtime friend Susan Gould.
“Stephen was a character,” she said, telling the AP that Cooper even had a copy of the photo in his wallet.
“Every year on 9/11, he would go looking for the magazine and say, ‘Look, it’s here again,” said Jessica Rashes, Cooper’s 27-year-old daughter, according to the AP. “He would bring it to family barbecues, parties, anywhere he could show it off.”
Plunkett wrote that she had spoken with two people in the photo, but she never met Cooper.
“It is a shame I was never aware of the identity of Mr. Cooper,” Plunkett wrote after his death in an email to The Palm Beach Post.
Cooper was born in the Bronx and served stateside in the Army during the Vietnam War, The Naples Daily News reported. He owned a home in Queens for much of his life and worked for many years with the New York City Transit Authority.
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