9/11 widow recalls moment husband’s heart was found in World Trade Center wreckage
Warning: This article contains details that some readers may find upsetting
A woman widowed by the September 11 attacks spoke about how workers searching the wreckage for the dead found her husband's heart.
After the initial horror of the two passenger planes crashing into the Twin Towers in New York City in 2001 - as well as the plane that crashed into the Pentagon in Washington D.C, and the plane that was ditched in a field in Pennsylvania - workers had the important but unenviable task of sifting through the wreckage sites, searching for the remains of the 2,977 people who died.
A report by 60 Minutes explained that if they wished to know, the deceased's loved ones could choose to be told if their loved one's remains had been found either once at the end of the searches, or every time that workers found human remains that had a DNA match.
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Nicole Petrocelli lost her husband Mark Petrocelli, a commodities broker who had recently had a promotion and had been employed in one of the towers. His remains would not be found by searchers until the day after a memorial service.
'I never imagined that his heart would be picked up off the ground in the middle of fire and rubble'
She told 60 Minutes in 2002 that she is one of those who 'choose to know every time', but this has meant that she ended up finding out things about her husband's death that she said she had 'never imagined'.
"A couple of weeks ago I got a phone call that they found his heart," she said.
"I never imagined that his torso wasn't intact, and I never imagined that his heart would be picked up off the ground in the middle of fire and rubble."
She explained why she had chosen to be told every time part of her husband's remains were found, even if it would give her a horrible impression of how he had died.
'I want to take him home'
"I feel like if he was sick and he was dying I would have taken care of him, so this is the way I can take care of him, and when he's identified I want to know, and I want to take him home," she said.
Nicole was asked about how most families would not be notified at all that their loved ones had been found, as searchers simply hadn't found anything.
"It's important for the families to remember that the recovery, the identification process, will continue at the medical examiner's office for quite some time, probably almost a year," she said.
She also shared that there was still one thing that she clung on to in the hope it would be found.
"I never give up hope that I'll get his wedding band back that I want so desperately, or that I'll get another phone call about some other remains," she said, describing herself as the 'the luckiest of the unlucky' to have been told that some of her husband's remains had been found.
It is sadly unknown if she was able to ever get his wedding ring.
How it was believed Mark died
Nicole was able to bury her husband in August 2002, and spoke to New York Magazine about when the medical examiner told her how they believed Mark had died.
She told the outlet: "He said Mark was probably killed by the initial blast of the plane. He was thrown so far out of the building he was killed instantly."
The next day she would receive the phone call telling her that they had recovered Mark's right foot and his heart.
"I could hardly breathe," she said. "But I suppose, as time went on, I thought of it as 'You have my heart; I love you'. And that's how I think of it now."
Kit Roberts