By Liz McBreen
Later that morning, she and several co-workers were at a courthouse in lower Manhattan for a briefing on a case. When the first plane hit, she was across the street from the World Financial Center, where her brother worked.
Shortly after the first attack, Consiglio spoke to her brother, who assured her that he was fine. She heard an announcement over the phone telling the Financial Center employees to remain where they were, and then the phone went dead.
"When the second plane hit, we all knew it had been terrorists, and not an accident," said Consiglio. She attempted to reach her brother again, and could not get through. She decided to go to the World Trade Center.
Consiglio's sergeant told her not to go alone, so she waited for others to accompany her. About ten minutes after the second plane hit, Consiglio, seven of her fellow officers and her sergeant were in a van heading towards the towers.
On the way, another officer asked them to get out of the van, and begin moving civilians north, away from the burning buildings. The officers were about a block away when the first tower fell. "The ground shook so hard that we all fell down and got scattered." Consiglio managed to stay near her partner, and then the smoke started to come towards them. "We thought we were going to die."
Consiglio knew the area because she had been an EMS worker downtown for several years before becoming a police officer. She and her partner began looking for other survivors. "It became very quiet after the building fell. All of the noise and the screams seemed to stop. There was no sound and no smell," said Consiglio.
As she walked through the gray cloud that had engulfed the area surrounding the Trade Towers, a man grabbed her arm. The man, Gary Johnson, had suffered a serious injury to his neck, and a major artery had been severed, causing severe bleeding.
Because she had worked on an ambulance for ten years, Consiglio knew how and where to apply pressure to keep the man alive. "I ran with him until we found an ambulance. We saw one from North Shore Hospital, and I bandaged him up as well as I could." She left Johnson in the hands of the hospital staff and then went back towards the site of the collapsed buildings.
Consiglio continued working at Ground Zero throughout the day of the attacks, not knowing what had happened to her brother. Her mind was put at ease when he paged her later that day to let her know he had returned home safely. But Consiglio still worried about friends and co-workers.
By that night, she had learned that two of her friends, New York City Firefighter Thomas Hetzel of Elmont and EMS worker Keith Fairben had been lost. "If no one had seen or heard from them by that night, you knew they were gone," said Consiglio.
Returning home briefly in the early hours of Sept. 12, Consiglio went right back to Ground Zero, where she would work 12 hour days for the next three months. On the days she did not work on the rescue and recovery effort at the WTC, Consiglio was placed at 'strike posts' where she guarded various sights that the Police Department felt might be in danger of another attack. Unbeknownst to her, a magazine photographer had snapped a picture of Consiglio as she was walking with Johnson and her partner. A week after the attacks, she saw herself in print. Consiglio's sergeant called the magazine and requested a copy of the photo.
Johnson's mother, who lives in Florida also saw the picture. She called the magazine as well trying to track down the woman who had saved her son. Employees at the magazine directed her to the New York City Police Department. Officers that the woman spoke to tracked down Consiglio using her badge number, which appeared in the photo. Soon after, Consiglio received a phone call from Johnson's mother thanking her.
Johnson is still undergoing surgeries to repair the damage he suffered, and regain movement in his arms. Last year, he was given the chance to meet the woman who had saved his life. Johnson lives minutes away from Consiglio's brother in New Jersey, and on Christmas day, Johnson, his parents and two children met Consiglio and her family. "Everyone has horrible stories about that day, but some good did come out of this. Gary's mom calls me every week like clockwork. They don't forget," said Consiglio.
Consiglio worked on the morning of Sept. 11 this year. "I think the city wanted to leave people alone. We had the option to go to Ground Zero if we wanted to." After work, Consiglio attended the memorial at Rath Park in Franklin Square with her family and Hetzel's parents. "I wanted to be with family and friends that day."
The police officer remembers the events of Sept. 11 clearly, but she describes the following days as blurry. "You want to do so much in a situation like that, but there is not much you can do."
In August, Consiglio was named "Distinguished Woman of the 22nd District" for her heroic actions during the terror attacks. When she received the award, she asked that it would be dedicated to her friends Hetzel and Fairben.
Hetzel was also a good friend of Consiglio's boyfriend Anthony, and had helped him on his path toward becoming a New York City Firefighter. "Most of the past year has been about being afraid. I think now we are starting to mourn what we lost," said Consiglio.
Consiglio has been with the NYPD since December of 1997, and currently also works on a 911 ambulance for Saint John's Queens Hospital, and volunteers for the FSMFD as an Emergency Medical Technician.
