Christine Famiglietti oral history interview conducted by Julie Broihier, July 23, 2010

About

Christine, an NYPD officer, arrived at Ground Zero at 4 am on 9/12/2001. As she entered the site, she was frightened by the "empty" look in the eyes of the fireman and cops leaving the scene, and the "crazy" atmosphere. The first thing she did was pull a body from the rubble. She then found another body embedded in rebar. She found what she thought was a pocketbook, but as she lifted it, she saw it was part of a burnt human head. Because it is not considered acceptable for police officers to cry, they had to make "hiding places" in the rubble so that they could cry unobserved. She hopes to never see large groups of grown men cry like that again. After many hours working on the pile, she went in search of food with a rookie police officer. She found food, water, and juice in various places and found a seat in a police van. She loaded the goods onto the seat and she and her coworker carried the seat back to the other policemen. A captain and her sergeant saw them approach carrying the seat. She said police officers never approach a captain, but there was no rank at Ground Zero--everyone was the same. She walked right up to them and they congratulated her on her work.

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Library of Congress

Language

English

Country

United States

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