TRI-STATE TROOPERS FUND - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Nurse in the Labor and Delivery Unit of Magee - Womens Hospital
Jennifer O'Connor works part-time as a nurse in the labor and delivery unit of Magee-Womens Hospital but couldn't fit in additional shifts while caring for her husband and children.
State police Sgt. Joe Ruggery, a friend of O'Connor's for more than 13 years, spent 24 hours on a mountain bike in the Subaru 24-Hour Champion Challenge to raise money in August 2008. He called his mission "Twenty-Four Hours for Tom."
"Tom impressed everyone around him with his strength and the dignity with which he carried himself in the midst of such an intense burden," Ruggery said. "I don't know that I would have stood as tall as he did under the same circumstances."
In an interview last year, O'Connor said he struggled most with losing his sight.
"The blindness is awful," he said. "It's so much more than losing your vision. It transcends so much deeper. It's the worst thing that could happen to someone. To not be able to see the faces of my wife and children anymore. … I can't explain it. It's terrible."
Yet, O'Connor's ability to stay positive remained until the end, Ruggery said, mostly because he was more concerned about his family's peace than his suffering.
"I have bad days," O'Connor said last year. "But we try to laugh every day, and we try to have fun. We can't change the situation; we just have to try to find a way to fight through it."
Job Titles:
- Sergeant
- State Police Sergeant Worked Tirelessly at Flight 93 Crash Site
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, state police Sgt. Thomas J. O'Connor was one of the first troopers to arrive in Shanksville, Somerset County, after United Airlines Flight 93 slammed into a field.
For nine consecutive days, he worked 12-hour shifts there, securing the site for federal investigators. Many state troopers chose to sleep in nearby hotels, but Sgt. O'Connor drove home to Monroeville each day to be with his wife, Jennifer, and their infant son.
"He was the all-American dad," said Plum police Chief Frank Monaco, a retired state police major who was Sgt. O'Connor's commander in Greensburg on Sept. 11.
At the same time, the chief said, "you cut Tom, and he would bleed state police gray."
Sgt. O'Connor died early Wednesday at Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC after a two-year battle with chondrosarcoma, an aggressive form of bone cancer. He was 42.
Sgt. O'Connor came from a family of police officers.
His grandmother, Eileen O'Connor, joined Pittsburgh police in 1944 and eventually became a detective in the missing persons unit. During her time with the city, she was one of just 26 female officers. Her brother, Gerald Mahoney, was a patrolman in the Hill District.
Sgt. O'Connor's father, John, also became a city officer, reaching the rank of sergeant.