Paramedic Carlos Lillo
Battalion 49

Memorial Service
was held on
Saturday, November 3, 2001

Laid to Rest
on September 14, 2002

At a friend's housewarming back in 1993, Cecilia Lillo paged through a wedding album and spotted a familiar face in the group pictures. Years earlier, back in high school, Carlos Lillo had been a gymnast and a baseball player, the handsome older boy who dated a girl in her homeroom. Now he was a paramedic in Queens and she was working for the Port Authority at the World Trade Center. They resisted being set up, until a party on New Year's Eve of 1997. They talked in a cafe until 7 the next morning. They bought a house together in Babylon in 1999. She finished her degree at Baruch. He worked extra shifts on private ambulances to save for a new fence and a pool. In April, they married. She is 35; he was 37. Even after being together four years, he had kept her e-mail valentines. "He was very romantic. We had our candlelight dinners at home, we used to act silly," Ms. Lillo said. "He wanted us to go to Disney World. I said, 'Let's wait until we have kids.' " They had an appointment with a fertility doctor for this week. On the morning of Sept. 11, Ms. Lillo escaped from her office in 1 World Trade Center, just as the building collapsed. "Then I saw an article in Newsweek, and his picture was there," she said. "He was helping someone." Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on October 2, 2001.

Newsday Article
Hometown AOL article

 

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