Nevertheless, the wording can be interpreted too literally.
To say that someone is “credited with saving hundreds” may mean his work allowed large groups to escape, that he helped maintain an evacuation route or that he contributed to a team effort affecting hundreds of occupants. It does not necessarily mean witnesses documented him opening hundreds of individual elevator doors.
The evacuation of the towers was profoundly collective. Building employees, firefighters, police officers, elevator personnel and civilians worked together. People held doors, carried strangers, cleared debris, provided directions and repeatedly returned to endangered floors.
Assigning an exact number to one person may be impossible.
No accessible public record offers a verified list of hundreds of survivors who identified Costello as their direct rescuer. The safest formulation is that he joined the elevator rescue effort and is credited by memorial sources with helping save a large number of people.
This evidentiary caution should not be confused with skepticism about his bravery. The uncertainty concerns the number, not the sacrifice.
Other Workers Faced the Same Impossible Choice
Costello’s story belongs to a wider, often overlooked history of building personnel on September 11.
Security guards remained at their posts. Engineers and construction workers opened blocked routes. Port Authority employees with detailed knowledge of the towers guided occupants through damaged areas. Elevator mechanics attempted to free people from cars and advise firefighters about a system that had been catastrophically disrupted.
In the North Tower, Port Authority construction manager Frank De Martini and colleagues including Pablo Ortiz used tools and their knowledge of the building to free people trapped on and around the 88th floor. Their actions have been credited with enabling dozens to escape.
They could have descended immediately. Instead, they moved through damaged areas, opened jammed doors and searched for others. De Martini, Ortiz and several colleagues died when the tower collapsed.
Their stories demonstrate why technical workers mattered. Modern skyscrapers depend on specialized systems that outsiders may not understand, particularly after normal controls have failed.
On September 11, familiarity with a lock, wall, shaft or stairwell could become life-saving knowledge.
The Elevator Problem Was Enormous
Hundreds of elevators operated across the World Trade Center complex. After the impacts, the condition of each one depended upon its location, power supply, shaft and position at the instant of impact.
Some occupants escaped by prying open doors and breaking through wallboard. Others found themselves facing several layers of material between the car and an occupied floor. Certain passengers climbed through hatches or moved between cars, actions that would be extremely dangerous under normal circumstances.
Emergency responders confronted a problem for which no realistic drill could have fully prepared them. They were dealing simultaneously with high-rise fires, mass evacuation, structural damage and an unknown terrorist threat.
Radio communications were unreliable. Information moved slowly between agencies. People in one tower did not necessarily know what was happening in the other. Many occupants were unaware that collapse was possible because buildings of that size had never failed in such a way.
Within that environment, an elevator technician represented more than an extra pair of hands. He represented a map of a hidden mechanical world.
A Family’s Loss
Heroic narratives often end at the moment of sacrifice. For families, that moment is only the beginning.
Costello did not return home on September 11. Like many families of the missing, his loved ones endured uncertainty before receiving confirmation of his death. His remains were reportedly recovered on January 6, 2002, nearly four months after the attacks.