Daisy the Dog and post-trauma mythology

There are accounts of guide dogs helping individuals to escape the Twin Towers, and so it is a possibility that Daisy is just an extrapolation of these accounts, though it is a wild exaggeration if that is the case. The closest real events that can be related to the Daisy the dog myth involve the story of Michael Hingson, a blind worker who was guided to safety by his guide dog Roselle from the 78^th floor. Another worker, Omar Rivera, also made it out of the Twin Towers safely after being aided by his dog Salty, this time from the 71^st floor. In both cases the only people involved in the ‘rescue’ were the dog and its owner, and in both cases such an escape prompted subsequent media attention and recognition. Michael Hingson has even written a book concerning his account, Thunder Dog: The True Story of a Blind Man, His Guide Dog, and the Triumph of Trust (2011), a best-seller that prompted Hingson to also produce the sort-of prequel Running with Roselle (2013). Both dogs, Roselle and Salty, were awarded the Dickin Medal for their efforts concerning 9/11, an award for gallantry granted by the PDSA. Generally the award is reserved for animals serving in military conflict, essentially an animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross or the Medal of Honor. A third dog, Appollo, also received the Dickin Medal, but did so on behalf of all search and rescue dogs involved with activity around ground zero. A great number of search and rescue dogs were used to explore the rubble of the Twin Towers, risking their lives for nearly 3 weeks in a bid to save others. Yet, even if every dog story even faintly associated with 9/11 were combined into one uber-narrative, the real events would not come close to the claims of Daisy. If her tale was true, she would likely be the most famous dog in the world, not some obscure unsung hero confined to internet memes.

The interesting questions around the Daisy the dog story are why it came to exist in the first place, and why people are so ready to believe and circulate it. Firstly though, for those in any doubt, there are clear reasons as to why there is certainty the story is a myth. At 8.46am, when American Airlines Flight 11 struck the north tower, it smashed a gigantic hole into the building, essentially destroying the 93^rd-99^th floors. Those on these floors would have likely died instantly, and the vast majority of those on the floors above would have not fared better, the resulting fireball from the exploding plane quickly devastating the upper-levels. Indeed, only 19 people survived the 9/11 attacks who were in either tower above the point of impact. James Crane was not one of them; indeed he wasn’t on any floor, as no worker of that name existed in association to the north tower. The 101^st floor, where it is claimed he was based, was occupied by a number of companies—Cantor Fitzgerald, Kidder Peabody & Co, The Boomer Esiason Foundation, eSpeed, and the charity Chances for Children—none of which employed a James Crane. His boss, who worked on the 112^th floor is certainly not real either, for no less of a reason that the north tower only had 110 floors. Even the Canine Medal of Honour award is false, the closest award as previously mentioned is the Dickin Medal. No dog named Daisy has ever been awarded the Dickin Medal, and no dog, or any other animal, has been awarded the medal for events resembling her story; the closest are Roselle, Salty and Appollo. Stories concerning survivors of 9/11 filled newspapers for a considerable time, and there is not a chance that one concerning a guide dog rescuing close to 1000 people would have been missed by every media company in the world.

The September 11^th attacks on America comprised of four coordinated terrorist attacks involving the hijacking, and subsequent intentional crashing, of passenger airlines. Two of the planes crashed into, and destroyed, the World Trade Center in New York, while a third plane crashed into the west side of the Pentagon, America’s headquarters of its national department of defense. The fourth plane, United Airlines Flight 93, came down in a field in Pennsylvania after the passengers overpowered the hijackers, ultimately sacrificing themselves to prevent greater loss of life. Flight 93 was headed for Washington, DC, with the likely target of the White House. The attacks on that day killed 2996 people and injured more than 6000. There was approximately $10 billion of infrastructure and property damage associated with the attacks, and the financial hub of America, New York City, saw an economic decline of $27.3 billion in the year following the events of 9/11. The events became a type of national trauma for America, one of the most significant and destructive attacks on its own soil in the history of the nation. Media response to 9/11 was unprecedented, and for the vast majority of Americans it was through the screens of their televisions that the events were presented to them. Certainly a defining moment, for many Americans recent history can be divided into Pre-9/11 and Post-9/11.

A national trauma is a wounding event, or series of events, that affects a large collective of people and, as a consequence, leads to a notable collective response. Common responses to instances of national trauma frequently involve a call to national unity, and a greater demand to improve the moral purification of a country’s citizens. This can be evidenced after the 2001 attacks in America, with noted increases in church attendance, greater focus on family and home life, and a growth in patriotic acts such as frequent flying of the national flag. Psychoanalyst Charles B Strozier, who produced the book Until the Fires Stop Burning: 9/11 and New York City in the Words and Experiences of Survivors and Witnesses (2011), argues that the collective trauma suffered by the American people in the wake of 9/11 activated deep-seated complexes in the national psyche around apocalyptic fears, or what he refers to as ‘Endism’. Put simply, Endism is the realisation that we will all die, and the palpable realism of that thought brought about by a real world event. A common response is fear, or horror, and in the case of 9/11 feelings of anger and rage were also rampant. Such emotions can be easily manipulated, directly or indirectly, through conscious action or subliminal shifts in culture.

With the case of 9/11 examples of such subsequent cultural shifting are numerous. From changes in music taste governed by revised radio playlists, to heighted national security and the ongoing ‘War on Terror’, the impact has been both subtle and profound, and certainly long-lasting. Fear and paranoia are exemplified by the increased hostility toward Muslim communities, often seen through simplistic post-9/11 views that pigeon-hole many Middle Eastern countries as hotbeds for fundamental terrorists. Such shifts in attitude impact culture, and 9/11 certainly has its share of post-trauma mythologies. Most obviously this can be seen in the numerous 9/11-inspired conspiracy theories, generally dark, paranoid, and focused on government corruption or sinister New World Order plots to enslave humanity. Real effort has been put into providing credibility to the long disproven theory that the World Trade Center towers were brought down by controlled demolition, as well as far more outlandish claims, like those of Dr Judy Wood, who claims a directed energy beam from space vaporised the towers by a process that she terms ‘dustification’.

There is another brand of post-trauma mythology that is as based as much in fiction as the paranoid conspiracy theories. This brand does not deal so directly with fear and rage, as it does with hope and sympathetic emotion. There are several fraudulent 9/11-themed claims that could be described as appeals to emotion that have clear ulterior motives, beyond creation of a simple feel-good story. One example is the account of Alicia Esteve Head, a woman of Spanish origin who falsely claimed to be a survivor of the 9/11 attacks in New York. Her claims involve her survival by crawling through smoke and flames to escape the 78^th floor of the south tower. She later established an online forum for survivors of 9/11, and Gerry Bogacz, founder of the World Trade Center Survivors Network, soon found out about Head’s forum and assimilated the group into his own. ‘Tania Head’, as she was now calling herself, became a prominent member of Bogacz’s group, and by 2005 she was delivering talks at universities about her experiences and leading tours for the Tribute WTC visitor center. Head was featured in numerous 9/11-themed articles, was photographed with New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, and eventually became president of the World Trade Center Survivors Network. In September 2007 The New York Times began research toward a 9/11 anniversary piece focusing on noted survivors. They began to look into the histories of survivors, such as Tania Head, with the aim of enriching their article. It was at this point that her claims began to rapidly unravel.

 Tania Head had given so many talks about her life experiences that her whole history had gradually become one of fiction through numerous embellishments. She claimed a degree from Harvard and employment by Merril Lynch Wealth Management. For added tragic twist, her fiancé ‘Dave’ was killed in the attack on the north tower. Research from The New York Times found that neither Harvard or Merril Lynch had any record of her, and later that ‘Dave’ was David S Suarez, who did die during 9/11, but his family had never heard of a Tania Head. Claims were even made of a charity set up by Head in Suarez’s honour – ‘Dave’s Children Foundation’ – but again no records of any such charity exist. Finally, evidence emerged that Tania Head was Alicia Esteve Head, and on September 11^th, 2001 she had in actual fact been recorded as sitting in class at ESADE, a private Jesuit education institution, in Barcelona. Travel records showed the first time that she stepped foot in America was in 2003. Serious questions needed serious answers. She soon fled from public view, and in 2008 a rumour was circulated (likely from Head herself) that she had committed suicide. In a final twist, documentary film maker Angelo J Guglielmo Jr, whilst making the film The Woman Who Wasn’t There (2012) about the Tania Head story, tracked down the alive and well Alicia Head, still living in New York City as of 2011. If the desire motivating her false claims was to gain attention, Alicia Head was certainly successful, if only for a period. She claims she never really made any money through her deception. If her aim was to offer hope that perhaps one more person did in actual fact survive 9/11, then this seems less clear, but it remains a possible aspect of her actions.

Some appeals to emotion are more blatant in their materialistic motivations, such as the account of Cyril Kendal, who claimed his son, Wilfred, died during 9/11. For his loss Cyril later received $160,000 in compensation via the Red Cross. He subsequently spent a significant amount of the money on a sports car, but soon after it was revealed that he in fact had no Son — Wilfred Kendel had never existed. Cyril was later sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Certain types of stories that have emerged are clearly inspired by traumatic events—stories that are joyous, hopeful, uplifting and life-affirming—all of which have claimed to be true, but all of which are complete fabrications. Their reason for existence does not seem to be part of any paranoid conspiracy theory or a direct scam, yet they do seem capable of having a tangible influence on some members of society. This is a sub-genre of fiction-presented-as-fact that I term ‘Hope-Porn’, which resides somewhere between click-bait spam and conspiracy theory; certainly Daisy the dog sits comfortably within this category. Hope-Porn is always false; Hope-Porn is a cathartic response to a tragedy, personal or national; Hope-Porn narratives often borrow their structure from religious sources, or reference divine intervention; and in Hope-Porn, either everybody lives, or a death has profound meaning.

Hope-Porn can be seen as similar to the idea of Inspiration-Porn, a term coined by Australian disability rights activist Stella Young. With Inspiration-porn, remarkable, or seemingly remarkable, achievements accomplished by people with a disability are presented as wondrous triumphs, either in a condescending ‘they’re almost like normal people’ tone, or as some sort of magical super-power worship. The accounts render any achievements of a person with disabilities as uplifting inspirational fodder for the consumer, objectifying the individual at the heart of the story. Equally similar is the idea of a ‘Glurge’, a catch-all term for an inspirational tale, overtly fictional or otherwise, which often conceals a much darker meaning than the moral lesson it seems to present. Frequently such things take the form of sentimental parables that hammer home a simplistic moral message at the expense of wider ethics or logic.

Examples of Hope-Porn can be found with reasonable frequency online, and many ‘amazing true story’ click-bait items can at least contain some of the required ingredients. An example with some parallel to Daisy the Dog is the story generally titled ‘The Old One’. Here, in the run up to Christmas, a brother and sister visit the farm where their elderly parents keep a heard of horses. The youngsters despair at the poverty of the farm, pleading with their parents to not waste more money on caring for old show horses. As the brother and sister depart, the barn catches fire, due to some old and frayed electrical cable. No one notices as the blaze begins to spread, except ‘the old one’ — the oldest horse in the barn. By the time the fire department arrives, nothing is left of the barn but smouldering ash, and the old couple are devastated at their loss, assuming all their horses dead. A walk to a nearby hill to gather their thoughts turns sadness to joy, as behold, the old one stands, surrounded by the entire herd they thought they had just lost. The story actually has its origins in a sermon written by the Reverend David L Griffith, around 1998. Always intended to be a parable about caring for the old, it was revived into a ‘true story’ sometime around 2005 and is often attributed to be the account of the equally fictitious Eunice Day. The tragedy here may be a more generic house fire, but it could be easily seen as relevant to anyone recently having suffered some form of loss.

Another example is the story of Herman and Roma Rosenblat, which is sometimes circulated as ‘The Fence’, and concerns a Jewish holocaust survivor and the girl who once fed him apples over the fence of a concentration camp. The girl is described as an angel, sent by Herman’s dead mother to look after him. Years after the war has ended, Herman is taken on a blind date, and discovers his date is none other than the apple-girl, who he credits with his survival. He proposes to her then and there, and the pair remain happily married for the next 50 years. Herman Rosenblat is a real holocaust survivor, who began writing his memoirs during the 1990s. By 2008, Berkley Books, who planned to publish the finished work, Angel at the Fence, withdrew plans to do so as it came to light much of the narrative was false. There was never a girl who gave apples at the fence, and although Herman did marry Roma, the circumstances of their engagement are quite different. The story still circulates in an abridged form online, and rumours of a film adaptation of Rosenblat’s unpublished memoir continue to resurface.

The story ‘Pink Rose’, which has been circulating around the Internet since 2002, is supposedly written by a young girl in response to the September 11^th attacks, and in particular dedicated to her fire-fighting father who died that day. The piece is actually a re-working of a poem by Cheryl Costello-Forshey, first published in 2000. The original poem, ‘Daddy’s Day’ was a fictionalised expression of loss that first appeared in the compilation book Chicken Soup for the Parent’s Soul (2000), but has been since changed to represent a factual account; sometimes it is also re-worked so that the father is a deceased marine. 

Other 9/11 post-trauma myths have a more obvious spiritual aspect. NYPD lieutenant Frank Marra claimed to have witnessed the ghost of a Second-World War Red Cross worker helping to search for the wounded amongst the debris of 9/11. Lillie Leonardi, a former police officer and FBI agent who retired due to post-traumatic stress disorder following the aftermath of 9/11, has described seeing the shimmering lights of angels in the grounds where Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania, as documented in her book In the Shadow of a Badge: A Spiritual Memoir (2012). Finally, freelance photographer Rich McCormack, who documented the fifteenth anniversary event of 9/11, took pictures of the beams of light shone upward as part of the tribute. At the top of one of the beams McCormack captured what he described as ‘a vision of the Lord’. After the image was shared online, many supported his sightings saying that they could identify an image of Jesus or an angel on top of the beam of light. All such accounts offer hope of some sort, and the notion that some great other is watching out in times of need. 

The story of Daisy the dog may too have a spiritual aspect, though far subtler. It is important to note that Daisy was a guide dog, and while the original inspiration may have been an embellishment of Michael Hingson’s escape with his dog Rosella, a guide dog sets up an immediately sympathetic narrative centred on one who cares for the disabled. In this case a guide dog could be re-interpreted as a guardian angel. When Daisy leads James to safety, hundreds of people are drawn to follow her. There are no details in the narrative as to what her ‘saving’ involved. Did she dig them each individually out of rubble? Or were they compelled to follow her as a beacon of hope? Upon her third attempt at saving people she is assumed to die, crushed under the collapsing building. Amazingly she re-appears, resurrected, in the arms of a fire fighter—a literal rising from the ashes—surrounded again by hundreds of people she has ‘saved’.

Hope-Porn, like Daisy the dog, continues to be spread as it offers optimism for the future and comfort for the past. People will such accounts to be true because they are life-affirming, and if enough people help share such stories, then in a strange way the stories like that of Daisy almost do become true, at least to those who believe them. The reality however, is that such events did not happen, and despite the likely good intentions of distributing a feel-good story, there is a real danger in believing in such claims. For families whose loved ones were amongst the many unidentified dead at 9/11 there remains a distant hope that they are still out there and claims like those of Alicia Head offer a brief chance that there may still be survivors yet to come forward. For those who lost loved ones during the World Trade Center attacks, the miraculous rescue of people by Daisy offers some reprieve or comfort that hope was on the side of at least some people. Ultimately however fake viral click-bait does nothing to help real victims of a tragedy, but it might help the advertising revenues of whatever site is pushing the video around. Endorsement of Hope-Porn narratives leaves someone only a step away from engagement with Internet scams, as appeals to emotion can be easily turned into a good cause donation. Plenty of ‘sick child’ scams play on this very idea.

There are commonly understood responses that the average person will experience in the face of any tragedy. Disbelief, confusion, anxiety, fear, guilt, and sadness are matched with hyper-vigilance, poor decision making, changes to routine activity and recurring thoughts. Basic assumptions that a person may have about the world may be challenged. A person may lose hope, and view their environment as filled with danger and uncertainty. Survivors of a tragedy may struggle to give meaning to any event, and look for answers about why something happened, or if it could have been anticipated or prevented through intervention. Accounts like the Daisy the Dog story aim to take a tragic event, and make it a little less tragic by inventing a tale of rescue and escape. By giving a tragedy some meaning, such as a dog saving 1000 people, the tragedy seems just marginally less tragic, even if it does so by bolstering the  often erroneous ‘everything happens for a reason’ mantra. At its best, even when understood to be false, such accounts bring feelings of hope, in much the same way as an uplifting TV drama might. At its worst though, Daisy the dog is manipulative, and through its dishonesty is more likely to harm rather than help. It is a gateway to more overt scams and conspiracy theories, which collectively, well-intentioned or not, slowly corrode the understanding of what is real, and what is not.