From Police Heroes, a book by author Chuck Whitlock:

Officer Alfonse Niedermeyer, a sixteen-year veteran of the Port Authority, knew about disasters. He was the recipient of a special citation for his role in rescuing passengers from US Air flight 405 when it skidded off a runway at LaGuardia Airport. His former coworker, retired Port Authority Officer Robert Fischer, called him “a born rescuer,” reported the New York Times.

Officer Niedermeyer, forty, the son of a retired Port Authority operations supervisor, went to school in Bayside, Queens. He graduated from the University of Dayton, Ohio, in 1983 and in 2000 earned an M.A.E. from Seton Hall University in New Jersey.

On September 11th , Niedermeyer had just gotten back from a two-week vacation and was back to his job with the Commercial Vehicle Inspection Unit. He rushed to the South Tower to assist with the rescue effort.

He and his wife, Nancy, lived in Manasquan, New Jersey. They had two children – a son, A.J. and a baby daughter, Angelica Joy, who was born in May, 2002.

Portraits of Grief, The New York Times

Ever the Rescuer

“One day we were at a busy intersection in Brooklyn,” Nancy Niedermeyer recalled. “An elderly gentleman tried to get across the street but he was disoriented. Al stopped the car, got out and helped him across.”

That was the moment she decided that Alfonse J. Niedermeyer III, all 6-foot-4, 200 pounds of him, was somebody she could marry.

Mr. Niedermeyer, 40, was a Port Authority police officer, a big man with a booming New York accent who was a genuine hero even before he rushed into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. In 1992, he received a special citation for rescuing passengers from a US Airways jet that skidded off a runway at LaGuardia Airport.

Robert A. Fischer, a retired Port Authority police officer who worked with Mr. Niedermeyer for 16 years, called him “a born rescuer.” He made friends quickly and kept them for a long time, said Kevin R. Quinn, who met Mr. Niedermeyer in the sixth grade.

Mrs. Niedermeyer asked that this article end with mention of how, a week after her husband’s memorial service, she found out she was pregnant with their second child. (The first is Alfonse J. Niedermeyer IV.) “I just want people to know,” she said, “that through all of this tragedy there is hope.”