The Side of Donald Trump You Probably Never Knew
In 1988, Donald Trump sent his private plane to transport 3-year-old Andrew Ten for life-saving medical care after commercial airlines refused. A story of quiet compassion.
Most people know Donald Trump as the brash billionaire, the deal-maker, the 45th and now 47th President of the United States.
But here’s a story from 1988 that rarely gets told, a story of quiet, immediate compassion that saved the life of a three-year-old boy.
In July 1988, Andrew Ten (Hebrew name: Avraham Moshe), a three-year-old from an Orthodox Jewish family in Los Angeles, was fighting a rare, undiagnosed respiratory illness. He stopped breathing 10–15 times a day and needed constant life support: a portable oxygen tank, a breathing bag, adrenaline syringes, a feeding tube, everything had to travel with him.Every commercial airline refused to fly him because of the complex medical equipment.
His parents, Rabbi Harold (Hershy) Ten and Judy Ten, were desperate. Someone suggested they call a New York real estate developer they had barely heard of: Donald Trump, who owned a private Boeing 727.Harold picked up the phone.Trump’s answer was instant.“Yes, I’ll send my plane.”
No hesitation. No questions. No cost.
The very next morning, July 19, 1988, Trump’s Boeing 727 landed in Los Angeles, picked up little Andrew, his parents, and three nurses who had been working around the clock to keep him alive, and flew them straight to New York’s LaGuardia Airport. From there they went directly to Schneider Children’s Hospital on Long Island for specialized treatment.
Harold Ten later recalled:
“Mr. Trump did not hesitate when we called him up. He said ‘yes, I’ll send my plane out.’ … Because he is a good man. He has three children of his own and he knows what it means to be a parent.” At the airport in New York, Andrew’s grandmother Feigy Ten stood waiting with tears in her eyes.
“Donald Trump is a miracle,” she said. “Just a miracle.”The family saw the entire episode as a living example of the Talmudic teaching: “Whoever saves one life, it is as if he has saved the entire world.”
Andrew received the care he needed, stabilized, and was able to return home.
He lived another ten years before passing away in 1998 at the age of 13.
In his memory, his parents founded Camp Avraham Moshe, a summer camp for children with special needs that still operates today.
That’s it. No press release. No photo-op. Just a man who owned a plane hearing that a little boy might die if he didn’t get it and saying yes immediately.
It’s one of those true stories that reminds us: even people we think we know everything about can still surprise us with the things we never knew.