#6 – Stanley Forman’s famous photo Woman Falling From Fire Escape |1975

A nineteen-year-old and her two-year-old niece and goddaughter are hurled off a collapsing fire escape during an apartment fire on Marlborough Street. The two waited with firefighter Robert O’Neil for a rescue ladder to reach them. As the firefighter climbed onto the rescue ladder, the fire escape collapsed under their feet and they fell to the ground five floors below. The woman was killed but the child survived, her fall cushioned by the woman’s body. It’s tragic, going from the hope of immediate rescue to a deadly fall in seconds.