Leigh Gilmore and her mother, Faye, would have likely died
in the 9/11 attacks if not for the quick thinking of two strangers.
"They are total heroes," Faye said of Greg
Frederick and Arnulfo Ponce, two hotel employees who helped evacuate them from
the World Trade Center complex.
On that day, the two women were among hundreds inside the
22-story Marriott Hotel, which was located in 3 World Trade Center in between
the twin towers.
When the attacks happened, the Marriott's elevators and
phones stopped working. Leigh, who has multiple sclerosis and depends on a
wheelchair, had no way to escape. She and her mother waited in the hotel's
fifth floor hallway as other guests fled.
"Everybody that came past I would say, 'Please tell
them in the lobby that I'm up here,'" said Leigh, 50. "I felt like no
one knows I'm here." An agonizing half hour passed, but still no one came
to help Leigh and Faye.
Suddenly, with the situation growing desperate, Marriott
engineer Greg Frederick appeared. He and his boss, Arnulfo Ponce, had helped
Leigh with her room two days earlier. Despite everything that was happening
around him, Frederick remembered where Leigh was.
"It was chaos," said Frederick, 43. "For some
reason, I thought of Ms. Gilmore, and I had a bad feeling that this lady is up
there."
Frederick used the hotel's freight elevator, which was still
working, to bring the women down to the lobby. They separated, and moments
later, the first twin tower collapsed on top of the hotel, decimating it. Faye
and Leigh had barely escaped with their lives.
"Good Lord, these men saved our lives," said Faye.
"They took the time to come and check on us. They could have easily just
run for their lives."
In the years after 9/11, Frederick and Ponce talked often
about Leigh and Faye, though they did not know the women's names or what had
happened to them. The mystery haunted them.
"I thought they were dead, but I knew they had a chance
of surviving," said Ponce, who was the hotel's chief engineer. "But I
never heard from them."
It would be eight years before Ponce and Frederick would get
their answers. Last month, they saw Leigh and Faye featured in the History
Channel documentary "Hotel Ground Zero." "Tears started coming
out of my eyes," said Ponce, 49.
The four eventually got in contact when the
men flew from New York to Chicago for a reunion party at Faye's home. "I'm
alive because of you!" said Leigh as she hugged Frederick for the first
time.
There were tears and laughter at the reunion. And for these
four people joined by fate, there was also a sense of relief. "It brought
closure to emptiness inside my heart," said Ponce. "I feel like these
two women are part of my family now."
Arnulfo Ponce and Greg Frederick, after their heroic
endeavors during the World Trade Center attacks, joined us at the Radisson
Martinique as part of our engineering staff. We are honored and privileged to
have these two courageous men as part of the Martinique family.
