Honorees

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Year Honored
2003
Honoree
Kathy N Mazza
Agency
Port Authority of NY & NJ Police Department
Agency City
New York
Agency State
NY
Last Call
9/11/01
Cause of Death
Victim of Violence *
Biography
When the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center collapsed from a cowardly act of terrorism, nearly three thousand lives were lost. Among those killed were thirty-seven Port Authority Police Officers. One of those officers lost was the first female to rise to the ranks of Captain. "When I retire I want to go out as Chief," she told her mom. "It seemed every time you were used to calling Kathy one title she had moved on to a new one," stated one comrade. "When those towers fell, it took some of New York's best."<br /> <br /> Kathy Mazza, 46, of South Farmingdale, New York lost her life in One World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 in the collapse of the South Tower. She was helping in the rescue of a wheelchair-bound person and was found only inches from a door that led to safety. Minutes earlier Officer Mazza had shot open a glass panel wall after a revolving door became jammed with debris allowing hundreds to escape the horror that was unfolding inside the building.<br /> <br /> Captain Mazza, a 14-year veteran with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, was trained as a nurse, and taught emergency medical service classes at the academy. "Kathy was a self-starter and an innovator," says Captain Michael Tobia of Port Authority Police Academy. "She was always doing research on new programs, new techniques to introduce to the trainees." In 1997, it was Mazza's initiative to train 600 officers to use defibrillators in airports; she was credited with saving sixteen lives. "She was the person who breathed life into the Port Authority training program," said Marie Diglio, Director of Operations for the New York City Emergency Medical Services. "She made it real." Kathy was honored in 1999 as New York City's Basic Life Support Provider.<br /> <br /> Mazza was hard-core on the outside because she had to be, but on the inside, she was light-hearted with a sense of humor. She was an avid "fisher-woman" who could reel supper in while others were not even getting bites. Kathy was known as the emergency worker, the nurse, the healer in her neighborhood; everybody with a medical problem stopped at her door first, recalls a neighbor. Kathy Mazza was proud to attain her rank and she was proud to be part of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.<br /> <br /> Honored 2003