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FDNY Chaplain Weds Couple Who Missed Wedding After Crane Collapse

By Gwynne Hogan | February 5, 2016 6:06pm
 FDNY Chaplain Ann Kansfield married Nesh Pillay and Aaron Vanderhoff who couldn't make it to City Hall on time following the deadly crane collapse on Friday morning.
FDNY Chaplain Ann Kansfield married Nesh Pillay and Aaron Vanderhoff who couldn't make it to City Hall on time following the deadly crane collapse on Friday morning.
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CIVIC CENTER — An FDNY chaplain and first responder to a deadly crane collapse Friday morning married a young couple who couldn't make it to City Hall in time for their wedding because of the incident.

Bride-to-be Nesh Pillay, 25, told DNAinfo New York that she was getting her hair done with her mother and sister at The Dry Bar in TriBeCa, when a massive crane toppled over just feet away, killing one person at 8:24 a.m.

Pillay was supposed to meet her fiancé on the steps of the Tweed Courthouse for pictures and then head to City Hall, but her wedding party was told to stay put in the salon until around 10:30 a.m., she said.

"I was stuck, I put on my dress because I didn't know what else to do," she said. 

When they were finally allowed to leave, Pillay and her family found many of the streets closed between the site of the crane collapse and the courthouse.

Pillay started the crosstown walk through the sleet in her wedding dress and heels when FDNY Chaplain Ann Kansfield, who was a first responder at the site of the crane collapse, spotted her.

"She was already shivering in the sleet, so I offered her my coat and walked her the six blocks to City Hall," Kansfield wrote in a Facebook post. "It took a long time for us to walk there she she [SIC] was wearing heals."

"Her officiant couldn't wait," wrote Kansfield, who is the first openly gay and first female FDNY Chaplain

Once Pillay met up with her now-husband Aaron Vanderhoff, 27, at the Tweed Courthouse, Kansfield stepped up again.

"She agreed to marry us, we just stood on the steps of the Department of Education and got married," she said. "The security guard wasn't very happy with us."

"We'd be delusional to think that our problems were the biggest at the time," Pillay said. "She took the initiative to recognize we needed help and she went above and beyond the call of duty."

"She's amazing," Pillay said.