Alison rollerbladed towards the World Trade Centre inferno. What she saw that day changed her life

A 37-year-old Alison Thompson was armed with a camera and a first-aid kit when she rollerbladed towards a commotion she heard was caused by a plane in Lower Manhattan, New York, on September 11, 2001.

After passing swaths of what she remembers thinking were “zombies” – shell-shocked civilians covered in soot, fleeing destruction – Thompson encountered an arm extending from a mound of gravel, with an engagement ring on a finger. She yanked it, attempting to help the partially buried woman. There was no body attached.

Horrified and nearly toppled by another crashing tower, Thompson sped away on her rollerblades and arrived at a base opposite the World Trade Centre, and began washing firefighters’ eyes with saline.

The former Cronulla High School maths teacher turned New York investment banker and filmmaker stayed at Ground Zero for nine months before dedicating her life to humanitarian work. But she has never been able to rid herself of that smell: burnt flesh, plastic, and oil.

“We started washing out the firemen’s eyes, and I found someone’s head out the front door,” she said. “There were just body parts everywhere, and disasters, we collect full bodies, usually, but it was just fingers and arms. One day, I found someone’s heart just sitting out there on the street.”

Thompson, now 61, has been recognised as NSW’s Australian of the Year 2026 for the work of her organisation, Third Wave Volunteers, delivering global humanitarian aid to crisis zones.

Before becoming a volunteer, Thompson worked in a nursing home in Sydney, then taught maths for eight years. After a near-death bus accident left her in a wheelchair for a period, Thompson moved to New York and set her eyes on Wall Street.

Sitting inside a friend’s Potts Point apartment this week, the morning light illuminates her face. Last week, she was jumping out of helicopters in Jamaica with aid after a category 5 hurricane pummelled much of the island.

She is yet to process the award. “I’m still running the big disaster in Jamaica. I have thousands of people on the ground and containers moving, and so I get up at 3am here,” Thompson said.

“Awards for me aren’t ego things, and it’s really to advance my organisation, Third Wave Volunteers, to be able to help so many more people around the world.”

From the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in countries including Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Thailand and the Maldives, to the ongoing war in Ukraine and Los Angeles wildfires, Thompson’s organisation has provided humanitarian assistance and medical aid to more than 18 million people.

“The world is in such a hard place right now, with so much hatred going on and suffering, that when a disaster happens, it’s really beautiful. Everyone comes together. There’s no politics … and everyone helps,” she said.

Thompson knows she doesn’t have to run towards crisis zones – but that’s precisely why she does it.

“I can always get on a plane and go home the next day, but they can’t. And that’s why I stay, because I have this deep sense of love that I can bring to communities.”

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