# Melissa Harrington

Melissa Marie Harrington-Hughes (May 29, 1970 – September 11, 2001) was a business director employed by Slam Dunk Networks who died in 1 World Trade Center at the World Trade Center complex during the September 11 attacks in 2001. She is well-known due to a message she left for her husband on an answering machine shortly before her death.

## Biography
### Life and work at the World Trade Center

Melissa was born in West Springfield, Massachusetts, on May 29, 1970. She was the daughter of Robert Harrington and Beverly A. Rzeszutek. She had a brother, Michael J. Harrington. Melissa grew up in West Springfield and attended Suffield Academy in Suffield, Connecticut, later earning a bachelor's degree in literature from Dickinson College. She would later graduate from the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California and earn a master's degree magna cum laude from George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
Melissa, who spent a summer as an au pair in France, spending two months in Paris and one month on the French Riviera, moved to San Francisco in 1996 after having lived for five years in Washington, D.C., where she had worked for the International Relations Division of the Department of Commerce as a commercial specialist in China. She worked for the Stanford Research Institute in California, where she specialized in international relations, serving at the time of her death as business director for Slam Dunk Networks in Redwood Shores, California. Harrington was also involved in the San Francisco community: she was a member and marketing director of the San Francisco Junior League as well as being active in Spinsters, a women's professional organization. She was also a volunteer at St. Vincent de Paul Church, where she served in the Young Couple Mentors program.
Melissa married Sean Hughes on August 19, 2000, whom she had met in a dance club for young people, with the wedding being held at a vineyard in the Napa Valley.

### Death

Melissa, who lived in San Francisco, arrived in New York on September 10, 2001 in order to attend a meeting the next day to oversee the merger of her company; The meeting was to be held on the 101st floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. At 8:46 a.m. on September 11, American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the building. The impact occurred between the 93rd and 99th floors, destroying any escape route and trapping all occupants above the 92nd floor. Shortly after the collision, Melissa called her husband; Because Sean was sleeping, Harrington, crying, left the following message on the answering machine: “Sean, it's me. I just wanted you to know that I love you and that I'm trapped in this building, in New York. A plane crashed into the building or a bomb exploded, we don't know. But there is a lot of smoke and I just wanted you to know that I will always love you." About ten minutes after the impact, Melissa spoke to her father, who usually did not pick up the phone, and, in a state of panic, told him that a bomb had just exploded in the tower. Melissa, who was scheduled to return to California the next day, confessed to Robert that what worried her most was not the fire but the large amount of smoke that was beginning to invade the floors above the impact zone. Her father asked her if she could see any signs indicating an exit, to which Melissa answered yes. Harrington informed his daughter that under these types of signs there was always the stairwell, after which he asked her to go down them and leave the building as soon as possible, both ignoring that the three stairs in the North Tower had been damaged. destroyed after the collision. After telling each other that they loved each other, Melissa asked her father to call Sean.
It is unknown whether Harrington and those who were with her died from smoke poisoning or from the collapse. Her body was recovered from ground zero four days later.

## Legacy

Melissa's name appears, like those of the other victims, in the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, specifically in panel N-22. Her family created a charity organization, the Melissa Harrington Hughes Endowment Fund, in her honor.