I have nothing to add or say this morning. Today in Washington, DC, New York City, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania there will be memorials to the people who died that September morning eight years ago.

What are your memories and will you do anything to honor the day?

“My partner and I were kind of slow on the uptake that morning, so we were flipping a coin for who was gonna drive,” Giebfried remembers.

Giebfried lost the coin toss and she and her partner, Jennifer Beckham, went to a local breakfast place for oatmeal. As they quietly ate, neither woman had any idea that within an hour, they would get a call on their radio that would put them at the center of one of the greatest tragedies in our nation’s history.

Giebfried and her partner rose above the call of duty that day.

At the World Trade Center site, they repeatedly put themselves in harm’s way as they moved people to safety, triaged wounds and calmed people’s fears.

Rev. Bonnie Giebfried

Twice, Giebfried was buried under falling rubble and managed to find her way out.

At one point, Giebfried gave her helmet away to a woman as she helped her out of the lobby of the South Tower.

“It was a horror movie scene,” Giebfried recalls. “Everything was burning.”

By the time she left Manhattan that morning, Giebfried had sustained multiple injuries and suffered three asthma attacks. More importantly to her, though, she had done her job.

Seven years later, Giebfried is still living with the physical effects of that morning. She has been diagnosed with 26 medical conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder, reactive airway disease, arthritis, vertigo and “WTC Cough.” Her thumb, wrist and arm have been reconstructed.

“I’ll never be without medications now because of the injuries and the diseases I have acquired from doing my job,” Giebfried says.

Giebfried’s situation is not uncommon. Seventy percent of the approximately 40,000 emergency responders present on 9/11 suffer from illnesses derived from their service at Ground Zero, according to John Feal, founder and president of the Fealgood Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to spreading awareness about the health effects of 9/11 on first responders.

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