Aric Tegtmeier was only six years old when his dad, a NYC firefighter, died acting as a first responder to the World Trade Center terrorist attack. Now, 15 years later, he is a volunteer with the Roosevelt Fire District. Alex H. Wagner/Poughkeepsie Journal
t was his father’s dream, and then it was his.
Inspired by his father’s sacrifice on 9/11, driven by a passion for firefighting and determined to honor his family’s commitment to public service, Aric Tegtmeier is fulfilling a dream.
The 21-year-old Pleasant Valley man has launched a career in the New York City Fire Department.
A volunteer with the Roosevelt Fire District since age 16, Tegtmeier on Wednesday graduated from the FDNY EMS Academy and is working as a probationary emergency medical technician.
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He hopes to become an FDNY firefighter, like his late father, who died while responding to the World Trade Center terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
In this file photo from 2001, Aric Tegtmeier, 6, walks toward the sanctuary at St. James Episcopal Church in Hyde Park for a memorial service for his father, New York City firefighter Paul Tegtmeier, who was killed in the World Trade Center terrorist attack. (Photo: Journal file photo)
Paul Tegtmeier, a Hyde Park native, was a longtime volunteer with the Roosevelt Fire District. He achieved his lifelong goal of working for the New York City Fire Department a year and a half before his death, Cathi Tegtmeier said.
Cathi Tegtmeier said her husband on Sept. 11, 2001, was driving on the West Side Highway when he saw a plane hit one of the World Trade Center towers. He was on his way to cover a fire station in lower Manhattan.
Though he never signed in at Engine 26, Cathi Tegtmeier said she’s been able to piece together that her husband got to the station and joined up with a crew just as they headed to the towers.
Paul Tegtmeier is believed to have died in tower 2. His body was never recovered.
In this file photo from 2011, Aric Tegtmeier, 16, a volunteer firefighter for the Roosevelt Fire District, of Pleasant Valley, photographed at the Paul Tegtmeier Memorial Park at Hackett Hill Park in Hyde Park. Paul Tegtmeier was their father/husband, a member of the NYFD who gave his life on Sept. 11, 2001. (Photo: Journal file photo)
Along with the demands of his new job, Tegtmeier has placed demands on himself that pay tribute to his father and his father’s colleagues who died on 9/11.
“I need to make sure I carry on their legacy,” said Tegtmeier, an EMT since 2014 who is assigned to FDNY EMS Station 27 in the Bronx.
Cathi Tegtmeier said her son has wanted to be a firefighter since he was a child.
“I’m thrilled he’s doing what he wants to do,” said Cathi Tegtmeier, director of communicable disease control and emergency preparedness for the Dutchess County Department of Behavorial & Community Health.
Added Cathi Tegtmeier, who is also a nurse and a former volunteer with the Roosevelt Fire District, “It’s nice that he’s following in his father’s footsteps, but you want him to be happy.”
Speaking of his father, Aric Tegtmeier said, “It’s some big shoes to fill. It was definitely a passion of his. It’s a passion of mine.
“I was very young when he passed,” Aric Tegtmeier said. “I don’t have very many memories.”
But Aric Tegtmeier has heard about his father from his former FDNY colleagues. And because of that, his memories of his father are “more about his personality and the guy that he was.
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