Bell Employees Help Toronto Airbus Passengers

Thanks to Girl On The Right for bringing this story to light. Bell Mobility has an office close to Pearson International airport, where an Airbus 340 ran off the runway and burst into flames earlier this week.

As thick smoke billowed from the Airbus A-340 crumpled in a ravine at Toronto's Pearson airport, a team from Bell swung into action.

Their goal: get cell phones and calling cards to the survivors to enable them to tell family and friends they had made it through the terrifying crash of Air France Flight 358 Tuesday afternoon.

"One young girl of about 17 was shaking so much she couldn't dial the phone," said Julia Quinton, Mobility's Associate Director of Communications, who went behind police lines to help in a room packed with about 200 dazed and tired passengers. "She was holding my hand, my arm, so tightly as I dialed. Then I heard her say 'Hello, maman' and burst into tears. I had to struggle to hold back my own tears.

"She said the media in France were reporting no survivors. Can you imagine how relieved her family was to hear her voice?"

That's just one of many stories of the fast and compassionate response from Bell that put 50 cell phones and 500 calling cards into the hands of passengers, crew and emergency workers within three and a half hours of the crash. All 309 people escaped with their lives after their plane ran off the end of runway 24-L after a flight from Paris.

Nice to see a company jumping out to help those in need during an emergency.