Aggie Ternasky spends vacations volunteering at disaster sites;
to be featured on ‘Today’
Gilroy – Aggie Ternasky remembers the exact date, the time, even the chore she was finishing up, when she decided to take action.
It was 1982 and the mother of three watched the havoc of the disastrous mudslides play out on the television screen. As she ironed clothes in the safety of her Gilroy home, rescuers dug body parts and victims of the storm from beneath the ground. Ternasky just couldn’t sit at home, she had to do something.
“I had no clue how you do this,” she said. “I thought, the least I can do is throw some shovels and buckets in the back of my little hatchback Honda Accord.”
And that’s exactly what the 4-foot-8 woman did – she went out there and got to work.
“And after a couple of days they stuck a badge on me and said ‘you’re with the Red Cross.’ ”
A longtime nurse familiar with blood, disease and infection, Ternasky quickly eased into the volunteer mode. Although she’s been an avid volunteer for more than 20 years, her reputation at Ground Zero – where she worked on a U.S. Navy hospital ship and at a counseling center – won her national recognition and landed her a spot on the “Today” show.
More than a month ago, a producer from the show called Ternasky to ask if she would be willing to star in their week-long pre-Mother’s Day series. The caller told the 61-year-old that her name had popped up on an Internet search for “mom.”
The article that had caught their eye was “They Call Her Mom,” written after 9/11 for the Sealift, a U.S. Navy publication, referenced the nickname ‘mom’ she’d picked up while volunteering after the New York terrorist attack.
She earned the nickname because of her mothering instincts or as Ternasky phrases it “because I was always nagging them.” As Ternasky listened to caller’s reasons for wanting to profile her on the Mother’s Day special, and fly she and her husband Mike out to New York City, she doubted its authenticity.
“The first time they called me I thought it was a joke,” she said. “I thought it was like how kids say ‘is your refrigerator running.?'”
But there was nothing funny about the honest inquiry. The “Today” show wanted her on the morning program. They said they were interested in the mothering aspects she used during her 15 years in pediatrics.
Initially, Ternasky hesitated. She didn’t give her time after 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina for the glory. She didn’t form a “Moms in Grief” support group, choose a career working with drug babies or at a San Jose rehabilitation home for drug and alcohol abusers, because she wanted everyone to note her saintliness.
So, Ternasky went to her pastor at South Valley Community Church and asked for advice.
“He said ‘just put it in the hands of the Lord,'” she said. “What he said was ‘this may touch other women’s lives.'”
Camera crews showed up in Gilroy, to film interviews with Ternasky and follow her while she worked. On Wednesday morning Ternasky and her husband Mike flew to New York City. She said the producers of the show told her not to plan anything concrete because they may have some surprises in store.
Volunteer Extraordinaire
Since Ternasky works full-time, the American Red Cross can count on her help at disasters, once a year. And “so far there’s always been a big one.”
A few days after 9/11 she traveled to New York to help deal with the aftermath of the disaster. For the first week she worked at Ground Zero, then as a nurse and counselor to families, helping them fill out forms and setting up a children’s center. Later she volunteered on the U.S.N.S. Comfort, a naval hospital ship.
While her volunteer work after the 9/11 attacks did stir up emotions, because of the isolation of the catastrophe it didn’t compare to the overwhelming atmosphere of Hurricane Katrina.
“That you could get away from, you could go renourish your soul,” Ternasky said. “Whereas at Katrina it was so massive you couldn’t get away from it. You couldn’t even get away from it to rest.”
The Gilroyan spent nearly three weeks working as a medical coordinator at a shelter in Baton Rouge, La. She helped set up medical centers and visited parishes or counties throughout the area to assess the damage.
She barely slept, bunking in rooms with about 80 others and working 17 hour days.
“It was frustrating because there was so much chaos,” she said. “It was like being in a totally different country. There was no getting away from it.”
Although Ternasky spends most of her time treating the physical and mental illnesses of others, serious tragedy has touched her own life. After her father died when she was young, her mother moved west, leaving she and her sister in Maine with relatives.
Her freshman year in high school, the two joined their mother and stepfather in San Francisco but it didn’t pan out. At 14, Ternasky and her 17-year-old sister became emancipated minors. The young woman paid her way through Catholic school and earned her nursing degree.
She was a single mother of two when she met her husband Mike in Redwood City. He had recently returned from the Vietnam war. Her husband adopted Ternasky’s two boys and the couple had another child.
Twelve years ago their 28-year-old son died in a car accident. Although Ternasky lost a child of her own, when she established “Moms in Grief” it wasn’t her own experience that led her in that direction.
After her son’s death, Ternasky said others were amazed at how well she appeared to be healing. The mother, grandmother and wife, attributes her serenity to her strong spiritual base.
“Your faith is something you can lean on,” she said. “If you don’t have something to lean on, you’re not propped up when life hits you … I feel like I can handle a lot because I have a lot of spiritual support on my side.”
Despite her hardships, Ternasky feels fortunate. She has a loving husband, a son living in Mountain View and another in Florida with his expectant wife and 11-month-old baby.
“I’ve been very blessed, and it’s not stopping,” she said.
