A New York City police officer who was severely injured in the 9/11 terrorist attacks has won a million dollars playing poker on a TV game show.

The officer, Mike Kosowski, 53, of Staten Island, New York, USA, won the money on the “PokerStars.net Million-Dollar Challenge,” which airs on the FOX Network.

The cop’s big bucks-winning episode was taped a few weeks ago and is scheduled to air in the USA tomorrow (December 27).

Kosowski, who along with hundreds of firefighters and other police officers in New York City, rushed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, to rescue survivors after the landmark skyscraper was attacked by terrorist-flown airliners.

Kosowski was then trapped for hours inside after the building’s South Tower collapsed.

He seriously injured his leg and back and had to retire from the police force.

With a lifelong disability pension in hand and hours of time to kill, he took up–what else?–online poker.

“Talk about lucky,” Kosowski told the New York Daily News in an interview. “I was one of the luckiest guys in the world to survive that day. And now this.”

After someone told him about the FOX show, Kosowski applied to be a contestant and was selected (his heroic life story didn’t hurt in the selection process).

He was then flown out to Los Angeles, California, USA, to tape the show, a five-episode series.

In an episode that has already aired on television in the USA, Kosowski beat porn model/poker pro Joanna Krupa.

In the episode that is to air in the USA tomorrow, the poker-playing policeman beats high school dropout/poker pro Daniel “Kid Poker” Negreanu to win the million bucks.

So what does America’s newest poker millionaire plan to do with his winnings?

Kosowski said he plans to pay off his mortgage and also give some money to his two children, Mike, 15, and Rachele, 22.

He also said he will give some cash to a scholarship fund that helps send the children of parents killed in the World Trade Center attack to college.

“The people that lost their lives down there, their children should be taken care of,” he said.

Once again, it’s poker to the rescue!

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.)