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Love Among The Ruins

Ellis Henican

September 10, 2002

Itll be an outdoor wedding, Ellen Leichert said. Upstate.

We just had a meeting with the caterer, said the fiancé, 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.

Well have a van or something, so people wont have to drive back to their hotel, he said. We dont 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, its 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 youve 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!

Isnt everybody saying we should get on with our lives? I havent seen the wedding dress yet, but Im 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.

Ellens 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.