I don't pretend to know what happend to anyone's account. I am just reporting what was stated in the media previously. There were probably many employee's who bought company stock with voulantary contributions, many plans offer discounts to further encourage this. I know many people who continue to do this even after I try to alert them to the dangers. But the point is many were forced to hold through this mess.
There's a story about an American financial giant (someone in the Ford family, perhaps) who sold all his stock in 1929 just a few days before the market crashed. After his newspaper boy had given him a stock tip, he realized that there were too many amateurs in the market for it to have any stability.
That story comes to mind on a regular basis these days.