Former IU student recently quit job at World Trade Center

Michael Weichman, who quit his job at New York's World Trade Center Friday, could have been dead had he kept his position. \nWeichman, who graduated from IU in May, moved to Manhattan in July. His apartment, which is near the Empire State Building, is only 30 blocks from the twin towers. \nHis office was located on the 81st story in tower one. \nAlthough Weichman no longer worked at the office, he said he still worried about his many friends and former co-workers at Network Plus, a telecommunitcations provider, who were working in the office at the time of the attack.\n"The exact office that I worked (in) got hit by the wing of the first plane. I was not there, but I saw all of the smoke and flames that surrounded the building," Weichman said. \nBut Weichman's friend was in the building at the time of the terrorist attack.\nHere's the gripping description he gave Weichman, who relayed it to the IDS.\n"My friend was working in the office at the time of the attack," Weichman said. "He ran down the stairwell, along with two other people and someone that they had to carry in a wheelchair down to the 30th floor. \n"They continued to run down the stairs, and he decided to go into an empty office and use the phone to call his wife, (who) worked in tower two. \n"After finally finding a phone line that worked, he called his wife on her cell phone to make sure that she was alright. She was running out of tower two, telling him that she was fine and that he needed to get out. He hung up the phone and began running, finally catching up to the others he had left. \n"By that time, he said that he could not see anything but blackness. After he ran down the other 50 stories that were left he saw a man that held a flashlight standing in a big hole. The guy was a FBI agent and he was waving for them to run in a certain direction. \n"My friend said that he tried to pick up the FBI agent to take him with him, but the agent refused and said 'I have to help the other people get out, you go on.'\n"My friend said that he was stepping all over dead bodies as he ran out of the building. As soon as he hit the revolving doors in tower one, tower two began to fall. \n"He started running toward the Hudson River. That is where we ran into each other, he was covered in clay and debris. There was nothing but mad chaos at the shores. There was a six to eight hour wait for a ferry to take you to New Jersey."\nAlthough Weichman's friend was fine, Weichman said he was still frightened about the fate of his other two friends that were working in the World Trade Center at the time of the attack. \n"I have tried over and over again to call their cell phones, and have received no answer. I really do not know what to think," Weichman said. "They are nowhere to be found and I know that they were in the office at the time of the attack. In reality, I know that they probably did not make it out, but I am still going to try call them until I know something for sure."\nWeichman and his girlfriend are currently in New Jersey waiting for the opportunity to get back to New York and pick up the pieces they have left behind. \n"It is a little different for people that just work there, but I live there, right in Manhattan, only 30 blocks away from the disaster," Weichman said. "Everything I have and own are in Manhattan, and since the bridge that takes me back to New York is closed because of the car that was found to have explosives in it, I do not know when I will be able to get home"