Immediately after terror from the skies rained death down on unsuspecting innocent people Sept. 11, city emergency officials designated Bellevue Hospital on Manhattan’s East Side as one of the major facilities to receive both dead and injured.

“We have a disaster signal here,” said Quentin Carrigy, associate director of the Hospital Police at the huge facility, “seven bells rung three times.” When that went off, he said, they immediately set up a command center in the Emergency Room.

The hospital handled about 300 persons who were involved in the disaster, many of them city employees who had gone to the towers to save lives. Some were treated and discharged, while others were admitted for further treatment.

“The hospital police officers here handled it very well,” said Carrigy, who had come up through the ranks himself. “But we realized we needed help, so we reached out to the other institutions.”

Central office started sending in officers from different places to help them out, Carrigy said, “which was a Godsend.” He added that they could have gone on for a time, but they needed help. “People get too tired.”

Central office and all the other institutions chipped in, he said. “They also sent us radios; they sent other equipment that we needed. They sent us transportation vehicles and drivers, and all of that helped.”

Help came from Coler/Goldwater, Coney Island, Gouverneur, Lincoln, North Central Bronx, and all the other facilities in the Health and Hospitals Corporation, he noted.

“They did an excellent job, everybody here,” Carrigy said. “I’m really proud of all of them, all of the officers. We even had some of the watchpersons come over from Coler and, I have to tell you, they all did an excellent job.”

HPO Duane Francis, a shop steward for the hospital officers, said much of the personnel involved in the disaster worked 12-hour shifts. Almost everyone was involved, from x-ray technicians to cooks and maintenance workers.

In an area near Bellevue, used as a temporary morgue, other members of Local 237, evidence and property control specialists, assisted in the identification process and categorized items found amid the rubble of the Twin Towers.

Other Local 237 members, officers from the Department of Homeless Services and the Department of Health, helped to keep traffic moving to and from the hospital, and provided additional protection to the hospital staffers. They also guarded the homeless shelter adjacent to the huge medical center.

Members in the Taxi and Limousine Commission aided in directing traffic to and from the Emergency Center, but they also provided transportation to grief-wracked families who were desperately searching for their husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers.