On arrival fire fighter Bob O’Niel went onto the roof of the building and lowered himself onto a fire escape where a woman and a young girl were anxiously trying to avoid the heat of the flames.

Just as he was trying to get a truck’s ladder into position the fire escape collapsed and they both fell to the ground leaving O’Neil hanging precariously onto the ladder.

Below, Stanley Foreman, a photographer with the Boston Herald was taking photographs of the scene and captured this dramatic shot of the woman and child falling. The woman, Diana Bryant, died later from her injuries but she broke the fall of her two-year-old goddaughter, Tiara Jones, who survived.

When the photograph was published the next day it caused a lot of hostility from readers who deemed it sensationalist, in bad taste and an infringement of Miss Bryant’s privacy.

But it also managed to get safety laws to improve inspection and maintenance of fire escapes in Boston re-written, and later it was used across the country to promote similar changes in the law, requiring property-owners to be responsible for the safety of their fire escapes.

The photograph won Stanley Forman the Pulitzer Award for Spot News Photography in 1976, One of three Pulitzer Awards he won during his distinguished career.