“I Love You, I Love You”: Sean Rooney’s Final Message To His Wife
9/11 Memorial & MuseumSean Rooney and his wife Beverly Eckert. They met when they were 16 and were married for 21 years, until his death.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Sean Rooney set out on his long commute from Stamford, Connecticut to his job at the World Trade Center in New York City. Rooney was the vice president at a company called Aon, and he had an office on the 105th floor of the South Tower. When a plane crashed into the North Tower, he immediately called his wife Beverly Eckert.
According to the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, Rooney initially told Eckert that an accident had happened at the North Tower, but that he — in the South Tower — was safe. But when United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower at 9:03 a.m., Rooney was trapped on the 105th floor.
Rooney called Eckert again — who he had met at the age of 16 and was married to for 21 years — this time to say goodbye.
Public DomainBeverly Eckert and Barack Obama during a meeting in 2009 between the president and people who had lost loved ones during 9/11. Tragically, Eckert died the following week — in an accidental plane crash outside Buffalo.
“There was a building in flames underneath him, but Sean didn’t even flinch. He stayed composed, just talking to me the way he always did,” Eckert later remembered. “I will always be in awe of the way he faced death. Not an ounce of fear — not when the windows around him were getting too hot to touch; not when the smoke was making it hard to breathe.”
She continued: “At one point, when I could tell it was getting harder for him to breathe, I asked if it hurt. He paused for a moment, and then said, ‘No.’ He loved me enough to lie. In the end, as the smoke got thicker, he just kept whispering, ‘I love you,’ over and over. Then I suddenly heard this loud explosion through the phone. It reverberated for several seconds. We held our breath. I know we both realized what was about to happen.”
Eckert then said, “Then I heard a sharp crack, followed by the sound of an avalanche. I heard Sean gasp once as the floor fell out from underneath him. I called his name into the phone over and over. Then I just sat there huddled on the floor holding the phone to my heart.”
Sean Rooney’s remains were never found. And tragically, years later, Beverly Eckert would perish in an accidental plane crash outside Buffalo in 2009.
