The Running Man

FDNY Lieutenant Vincent Francis Giammona

Ladder 5 Manhattan | End of Watch:  09/11/2001

Photo Credit:  FDNY

On the morning of September 11, 2001, his 40th birthday, Lieutenant Vincent Francis Giammona could have gone home.  His 24-hour tour of duty at Ladder 5 on Houston Street had ended.  He had hung around the firehouse in order to go for a run.  He was training for his first New York City Marathon, which was then less than two months away.  He, of course, did not go for that run. 

Instead he did what countless other off-duty FDNY members did that morning.  He joined his brothers in the fight that was the FDNY's response to the two planes striking the World Trade Center.   As was the case with 342 other members of the FDNY,  Lieutenant Giammona never made it home.  He died at the World Trade Center.  

Vincent Giammona and his wife, Theresa, were the proud parents of four daughters, Francesca, Toni-Ann, Nicolette, and Daniella, who were eight, six, three, and two respectively when their dad was taken from them.  

Lt. Vincent Giammona never got to run in the 2001 New York City Marathon.  Fourteen years later, Theresa toed the line in his memory.  She ran the 2015 New York City Marathon as a member of a charity team on behalf of "Answer the Call", the benefit fund for the widows and children of New York City's fallen firefighters and police officers.  At age 45, running her first marathon, she covered the course in 5:40:21.