An emergency mechanism for manually opening a powered door that includes a hold-close latch that holds the door in a closed position. During the manual operation, a manually operated handle for actuating only the hold-closed latch is manually moved from a non-actuating position to an actuating position, which actuates the hold-close latch to release the door from the closed position. The handle is held in the actuating position until it is moved back to the non-actuating position during a subsequent powered operation, thus allowing a user to move the door to an opened position using both hands.