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Love Among The Ruins

Ellis Henican: September 10, 2002

�It�ll be an outdoor wedding,� Ellen Leichert said. �Upstate.�

�We just had a meeting with the caterer,� said the fianc�, whose name is Phil Eguiguiurens.

�A band, a big tent, 200 people,� she went on, touching on the high points. �And, like, eight hours of open bar. A very long open bar.�

�We�ll have a van or something, so people won�t have to drive back to their hotel,� he said. �We don�t need anybody getting hurt.�

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No, these two have already seen enough of that.

When it comes to New York after Sept. 11, it�s always risky saying that anybody is �the first� or �the only� anything.

So many people have behaved so extraordinarily these past 12 months, just when you think you�ve discovered some fresh superlative, another one jumps up in its place.

But here goes: I believe I am correct in declaring that Ellen and Phil are the only two New York paramedics who responded to the World Trade Center terror attack, arriving in the earliest moments and truly risking their lives, who have now decided to marry.

Each other.

Talk about love in the ruins!

Isn�t everybody saying we should get on with our lives? I haven�t seen the wedding dress yet, but I�m pretty sure that Ellen Leichert will not make a foofie bride.

Nothing about Ellen is foofie.

From her growing-up years in Richmond Hill, through her teenage punk period and her Mohawks, right up to her decision 11 years ago to become an EMT and then a paramedic � she was always independent, outgoing and fearless.

Phil Eguiguiurens is every bit as hard-driven as his future wife.

A muscular South Bronx native from a tight-knit family of Honduran immigrants, he was never one of those paramedics who sought the easy shifts.

Like Ellen, he was drawn to the adrenaline-fueled rescue work. Like her, he loved the lights-and-sirens life.

They were not regular partners.

But on the morning Sept. 11, 2001, they were parked together beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, unit 32-Victor out of Long Island College Hospital, waiting for their first call of the shift.

Ellen�s usual partner had taken the day off. She and Phil were assigned a hulking old separate-cab Nissan ambulance known around the hospital as �The Wildebeest.�

The morning was sparkling and blue. The Twin Towers glimmered in the sunshine across the bridge.

�The angle the plane came in, I thought it was going to hit one of the bridge pillars,� Phil recalled.

�Then the nose lifted,� Ellen said, �and it hit the tower instead.�

Thirty-two-Victor didn�t need to be asked to roll.

Up the on-ramp. Across the bridge. Roaring into lower Manhattan in nothing flat.

�Don�t do anything reckless,� Ellen shouted to Phil as they got closer.

He shot her a look.

�No, really,� she said.

They argued about safety the rest of the way to the towers. In the end, they promised they would stay in each other�s sight.

The second plane hadn�t hit yet. Neither tower had collapsed. But people were already rushing frantically out of the buildings, sooty, scared and burned. Others were jumping from windows above.

�The way we were facing, I could see the jumpers,� said Phil.

�And I couldn�t,� said Ellen. �My back was that way.�

He kept talking, so she couldn�t turn around. �I didn�t think she needed memories of that,� he said. �Thank God.�

Soon enough, neither one of them had time for looking skyward.

�Her name was Wendy,� Phil said.

�Her clothes were burned completely off,� Ellen said. �What was left of her bra was singed into her chest. Her hair was falling off. She had shoes on, but that was it. Phil and I both saw her coming. Both our hearts just about stopped.�

�Third-degree burns, probably 90 percent of her body,� Phil said. �The only place it was second-degree was between her thighs. And that�s where she was feeling most of the pain.�

Onto the stretcher Wendy went. Into the back of The Wildebeest. Phil drove. Ellen rode with the patient.

They raced to the Cornell burn unit, lights and siren all the way.

�It was the longest ride ever,� Phil said.

�She just kept saying, �I�m sorry, I�m sorry,�� Ellen recalled. �I told her, �What are you sorry about?� She said, �Making you do this.� I said, �This is what we do.� I asked her, �Do you want to pray to God?� She said she did.�

The women prayed �til Phil pulled the �Beest up the emergency entrance. The doctors did what they could for Wendy. It wasn�t nearly enough.

�We tried,� Phil said. �We really did.�

It is impossible to say, of course, how a day like that affects two people. It can bring them together. It can tear them apart.

�I�m just glad I was there with him,� Ellen said. �I would have gone nuts, wondering, �Where is he?��

�Knowing we were together, that made all the difference,� her future husband agreed.

�Like I promised,� said the paramedic bride of 9/11, �I never let him out of my sight.�