Posted on 09/14/2001 7:11:35 AM PDT by Cagey
BOGOTA (Reuters) - A blind Colombian man accompanied by his faithful dog was led to safety by his female boss down 70 flights of a narrow emergency staircase of a tower of the World Trade Center after it was slammed by a hijacked plane.
Seated with his golden Labrador retriever guide dog beside him, Omar Eduardo Rivera told Caracol television and radio on Thursday how two days earlier he fled down the stairs for more than an hour with his hand on the unnamed woman's shoulder.
He unleashed the dog to let it escape, but with glass falling around them, the animal led him to an emergency exit and stayed by his side as a crowd of people descended the stairs to escape the building which collapsed soon afterward.
Computer worker Rivera was in his office on the 71st floor of the one of the trade center's twin towers on Tuesday, his dog underneath his desk, when suicide hijackers crashed a jet into the 110-story building some 25 floors above him.
"I stood up and I could hear how pieces of glass were flying around and falling," Rivera, said in a quiet voice in a peaceful garden somewhere in New York. "The dog was very nervous, and he ran off but came back and kept by my side. He didn't bark."
At the emergency exit, his boss led him down the stairs.
"I took hold of her arm. She went down on my right side and the dog on my left. When it became narrow and people were pushing and shoving more, she went in front and I just held on to her shoulder," said Rivera, who is from Bogota, the capital of Colombia, which is fighting a war on leftist guerrillas.
"At first there was panic, and some people tried to run and go first. But really most people behaved quite prudently and grasped what was happening, so we walked down in an orderly fashion, but it was slow-going.
Seated with his golden Labrador retriever guide dog beside him, Omar Eduardo Rivera told Caracol television and radio on Thursday how two days earlier he fled down the stairs for more than an hour with his hand on the unnamed woman's shoulder.
Complete stranger in fear for her own life aids complete blind stranger.
He unleashed the dog to let it escape, but with glass falling around them, the animal led him to an emergency exit and stayed by his side as a crowd of people descended the stairs to escape the building which collapsed soon afterward
He chose to die rather than let his dog die too, but the dog stayed with him and did his job. The loyalty and love of a dog for his person, and the loyalty and love of a man for his dog.
I am looking forward to someone collecting these stories and putting them out in a book. What an inspiration to young people it will be.
I am a strong proponent of making MORE and LARGER, WIDER emergency staircase exits. If you've ever been in an emergency evacuation of a big building, you know the stairs are too narrow, even in the newer buildings, to handle the load of fleeing, panicked people, at a time when every second counts.
Omar Eduardo Rivera, who is blind and from Colombia, tells Colombia's Caracol Television September 13, 2001 how he escaped down 70 floors of one of the World Trade Center towers in New York after it was hit by a hijacked jet airliner on September 11. Rivera put his hand on his woman boss's arm and followed her down a narrow staircase, accompanied by his faithful guide dog. QUALITY FROM SOURCE REUTERS/Caracol Tv
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