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In Remembrance
Age:
47
Place of Residence:
Levittown, NY
Location on 9/11:
Unknown
Occupation:
Port Authority of New York & New Jersey | Instructor at Rescue Training Center
Reflections:
The New York Times Portraits of Grief
Paul Jurgens Foundation
Biography:

Officer Paul Jurgens, forty-seven, was driving from JFK Airport to Jersey City on the morning of September 11th. He was last seen speeding to the World Trade Center to help. A Port Authority officer for twenty-one years, he helped rescue many of the injured during the 1993 bombing at the World Trade Center. In 1992 he was involved in the successful evacuation of 292 passengers from a burning jet that had crashed on takeoff at JFK Airport.

A former Marine Corps corporal, Jurgens joined the Port Authority police in 1980. His proficiency in rescue work led to a job as instructor at the Port Authority’s Rescue Training Center. Jurgens also volunteered for the East Meadow Fire Department and coached Police Athletic League baseball.

He and his wife, Maria, had three children – Paul, June and Lindsay. The youngest of four siblings, Jurgens loved pulling practical jokes. As reported in the New York Times and New York Post accounts of the September 29 memorial service for Jurgens, his brother-in-law said he woke up after dozing off one evening after dinner to find the words “Paul Jurgens is my hero” written on his arm. “Now I realize how true that is,” he said.

From Police Heroes, a book by author Chuck Whitlock