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I'm pretty sure there was another guy (Arland D. Williams Jr) who grabbed the helicopter rope and with it helped one or two other survivors to the shore, but he then succumbed to the cold and did not make it. Not all heroes survive, as we know.
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This is correct; one of the spans of the 14th Street Bridge (the inbound span for the non-HOV lanes, which is the one the plane hit) is named for him.
I remember that day. Massive snowstorm, federal offices closed early so there was horrendous traffic, and then the Metrorail derailment occurred near Federal Triangle shortly after the plane crashed. I remember it took a couple of hours, instead of the usual 15 minutes, to get home from school that afternoon, in part because our school bus normally used Woodburn Road but couldn't do so that day since it was so slick (lest the bus slide into the ditch), and then I remember getting home and my mom was worried because our father used the Federal Triangle Metro stop since it was the nearest to his office.
