25 of the World’s Most Inspiring Women
For BEING A RESCUE HERO On a bitterly cold night in January 2000, Dana Christmas-McCain, then a senior and resident assistant at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey, performed an amazing act of selflessness. As a fire blazed through her dormitory floor, she ran through the hallways to alert her fellow students. In the end, three people died and 62 were hurt. But without her courageous act, the losses could have been even greater. Christmas-McCain, now 28, was left with burns over more than 60 percent of her body, and spent almost two months in an induced coma. Six years and more than 16 corrective surgeries later, her spirit remains indomitable. “I don’t dwell on what happened to me,” she says. “I just had to move forward with my life.” A $10,000 award, the Dana Christmas Scholarship for Heroism, has been established in her honor. —w.l.w.
Find out the other 15 World's Most Inspiring Women in the May issue of Essence! On newsstands April 18, 2006. |
