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Edna Cintrón
Edna Cintrón
	Cintron in 2001
Born	Edna Troche Cintrón; October 14, 1954; Puerto Rico
Died	September 11, 2001 (aged 46); New York City, US
Occupation	Administrative assistant
Employer	Marsh & McLennan

Edna Troche Cintrón (October 14, 1954 – September 11, 2001),^[1] also known as the Waving Woman,^[2] was a Marsh McLennan-employed administrative assistant at the World Trade Center who was killed in the September 11 attacks of 2001. She is well-known due to several videos of her waving in the impact site of American Airlines Flight 11 from just minutes after impact until shortly before the North Tower collapsed.

Biography

Early life and education

Edna Troche Cintrón was born in Puerto Rico on October 14, 1954, and moved to New York when she was approximately five years old. Edna had an older sister, Myrna, and a brother.^[3]

Cintrón grew up on Delancey Street in Lower Manhattan, and her first years of life were spent in an environment of poverty, with her mother working at the city's board of education and having few financial resources. Edna studied until the eleventh grade, failing to graduate from high school, although in the last years of her life she was preparing to obtain a GED, a degree equivalent to a high school diploma.^[3]

Marriage and work at the World Trade Center

Edna met her future husband, William Cintrón, in 1987 during a visit to his brother's girlfriend's home in Upper Manhattan. Unlike Edna, William, two years her junior, had already been married and had two children.^[4] Two months after meeting, they moved to an apartment in Brooklyn, marrying two years later. The couple did not have children due to Edna's inability to conceive, although both contemplated the possibility of adoption, although they postponed this option due to financial problems.^[3] Residing in a neighborhood in Queens for the last nine years of their marriage, Edna and William used to take cruises, visiting places like Bermuda, Mexico and Jamaica. They also often traveled to Bear Mountain State Park and visited the casinos in Atlantic City.^[5]

Cintrón, a fan of collecting paintings and figures of angels, began working in the southern tip of Manhattan a few years before the attacks, first at the World Financial Center and later at the World Trade Center, in the computer support section of the insurance firm Marsh & McLennan, where she worked as assistant billing administrator on the 97th floor of the North Tower.^[3]

Death

At 8:46 a.m. on September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 11, a hijacked domestic passenger flight, crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. The impact occurred between the 93rd and 99th floors, destroying all escape routes leading to lower floors, while also trapping and killing all occupants above the 91st floor. It was initially believed that all people located on those floors had died from the collision. Several videos and photographs of the hole left by the plane show a living woman inside the hole, generally identified as Edna Cintrón, waving at people in the streets below.^[6]^[7] The victim appears outside among the mass of iron and leaning on one of the ruins of the structure while shaking her hand, and right arm.

Cintrón's name is on the National September 11 Memorial & Museum Fountain that represents the North Tower, and is also on the Marsh and McLennan 9/11 Memorial.^[8]