IN THE ULTIMATE ACT of friendship, one Blue Cross/Blue Shield employee stayed with a handicapped co-worker to wait for help as 1 World Trade Center burned.
Abe Zelmanowitz, a 55-year-old Brooklynite, refused to leave his friend of 12 years, Ed Beyea, who was paralyzed from the neck down since a freak diving accident at age 22. The two were on the 27th floor when the first plane struck the north tower. They remain listed as missing along with seven other Blue Cross/Blue Shield employees.
Here is the story of what happened the morning of Sept. 11, as told during a special report on NBC’s Dateline:
Beyea, 42, a wheelchair-bound resident of a small town in upstate New York, worked as a computer programmer as did his friend Abe. The two had met on the job.
The day began as just another typical morning. Ed had arrived at work at 8:30 a.m. with his caretaker Irma Fuller, who had gone to the 43rd floor to get his breakfast. When the building shook with the impact of the plane slicing into the upper floors, Irma hurried back downstairs to find Ed and Abe in the stairwell among countless people rushing down the stairs. At almost 300 pounds and over 6 feet tall, and hooked up to medical equipment, Ed could not be easily moved.
The two sent Irma to get help.
When Abe’s sister-in-law Evelyn’s phone rang a short while later, it was Abe telling her that he and Ed were together and that a firefighter was with them. He said that Ed was
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