story20325.xml

story20325.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2006-09-08

I am a nurse/ OB/GYN nurse practitioner, and I was at work at a private practice OB/GYN office. A patient told us all about the first plane soon after it hit. We got a radio going and listened to the news, and soon after we learned of the second plane. The physician we were working with that dat seemed to be in denial, and only after the Pentagon was hit did she dismiss us, saying, "We're under attack. Go home."

I left the office and walked home and turned on the TV. By this time the towers had fallen, and although I knew in my heart of hearts that there couldn't possibly be survivors, I knew I had to do something. The first place I went was the NY Blood Center, and- I am proud to annouce- the line was already around the block. From there, I started calling my friends (almost all of whom are other nurses or physicians) and father on my cell phone to make sure they were all accounted for. Needless to say, I couldn't get through to anyone. While I was doing this, I walked toward the last hospital I worked for, which was Lenox Hill Hospital. I will never for get how empty the streets were almost immediately after the attacks. The lack of auto traffic allowed pedestrians to walk through the streets like zombies, all of us looking to the south. I will never forget looking down an eerily empty Lexington Avenue and seeing the smoke billowing upward as far as my eye could see. I stood there, in the middle of the street, thinking to myself, "What is happening to my city?" I decided to go to a friend's office. We both hugged and cried when we found eachother. She had let her workers go home and cancelled the rest of her patients. From her office land line I called my Dad, and tried to reach a friend in Queens who was working at a hospital as a physician, and whose brother was a first responder. Her brother was off that day and so didn't get called in until after the towers were hit, and so she knew he was safe. Unfortunately, his best friend was working that day and indeed died.

From my friend's office, we went walked to Lenox Hill Hospital. There, we found quiet, organized chaos. Everyone was running around preparing for the deluge of patients they were expecting, but that would never come. We found ourselves in an auditorium where all healthcare had personnel gathered. Everyone signed up for emergency care leaving their names, pager/ cell phone numbers and area of medical practice. After that, we sat and waitied to give blood. We felt helpless and numb. She later went home to her Queens apartment, and I met up with a couple of male physician friends and we had a much neede drink at a sidewalk cafe. We mostly watched passers- by, observing the looks on their faces and listening to thier conversations to eachother, and on their cell phones. No one smiled. No one laughed. Some cried. Most were just in shock. I had worked with these two men for a couple of years and they had been good friends. As we said goodbye that night, we all hugged and kissed as if we mightnow see one another again, and after- all, we really didn't know if we would.

From the upper east side, I walked home to 61st Street between First and Second Avenues, and changed into scrubs. I then walked to Bellvue Hospital. I walked into the Emergency Department and asked if they needed any one else to help. They directed me to the area where the ambulances come and go. A nurse behind the counter told me that they were taking docs and nurses back down with them, "but at this point, we're just getting burn victims now, and I don't know if they're taking anybody else down with them." It was around 9P. I waited for about 30 minutes and then decided to return home. I will never forget how Bellvue smelled like burnt toast... and burned flesh.

I got home, listened to frantic messages from friends with whom I had not yet communicated. I made a few phone calls and then watched TV throughout the night. I got up, and called my office. Yes, they were expecting us in at work. I walked to work and bought every news paper I could get myhands on. Already, there were the infamous pieces of paper taped and stapled everywhere saying things like, "Lost" and "Missing." Again, the streets were empty. My city changed over night. Now the smells I had encountered at Bellvue had permiated throughout the city. I got to work and very few patients showed. A couple of our OB patients were wives of men who died working in the Towers as bond traders for Cantor Fitzgerald. The day was grim, and we all just wanted to go home or go try and help again. We were let out early (I think around 2PM). As I walked home, I remember feeling pulled toward down town. I didn't care that it looked like almost no one was being rescued, I still felt like I needed to help. I felt as if I would come out of my own skin if I didn't at least try and get down there to help in anyway.

I went home, changed into scrubs again, grabbed all my nurse ID's, hopped in my car and started to drive southwest. The drive was quick and easy, and the smells got stronger as I drove. Finally, I came up to the West Side Highway where I was met by army personnel with rifles. I showed them my ID and they waved me through. I guess it was about 3PM on September 12, 2001. After I was waved through a couple of different times at various check points, I was finally told I had to leave my car at the Javits Center. I parked my car across the street from the Javits Center and then walked over to where it looked like people had set- up camp. Of course, I was not the only person, medical or non, to have the same idea. I came across a friend, a graphic designer, who was there handing out water. "I don't know what else to do," she said, "but I had to do something." She directed me to where someone was taking the names of trained medical professionals. I gave my name and credentials to a woman who told me that when my name was called I was to get on a bus, and that that bus would take me to ground zero where I would be assigned a job.

Sure enough, approximately 40 minutes later, about 20 other people and I boarded a bus (I don't recall what kind). Once on the bus, we all started to exchange names and who we were. Most of us were nurses, there were some medical residents, a couple of medical students, and the rest had been EMT's or paramedics in a past life.

We were dropped off a block or two from where the Twoers had once stood. We all walked single file, back packs on our backs mostly filled with water. I grabbed a camera before I left my apartment, and so, with shaking hands, I took a couple of pictures. The pictures would later reveal the back of the head of the woman in front of me with the faint outline of the skeleton of one of the Towers, glooming darkly in the background.

It was now about 5P or 6P on 9/12/01. A few people had been rescued from the rubble, and we were all praying that more would be. Our line of would be helpers was directed to Stuyvesant High School, just across Vesey Street and before the crumbling of the Towers, a couple of blocks away from the Towers, but post the Towers' fall, Stuyvesant High School was now merely yards away from the rubble.

When we walked into the lobby of the high school, it became clear that we were going to have one job and one job only: to take care of the firemen and army personnel that were laboring seemingly effortlessly. To this day, i have no idea how that "MASH" unit was set, or by whom, but it ran cleanly and efficiently. One thing was for sure, there was not a "fed" in sight.

Assigned various jobs through the night, and into the morning, sometimes I placed in an assembly line set- up for eye care, or I was pulled over to help a particular firefighter, or transit authority police officer. From one minute to the next, it changed, but it was always calm.

I have very clear memories of the time spent at Suyvesant, about 28 hours in all. One distinct memory were the amazing amount of medical supplies that kept appearing. It just came in in box after box, and after it was all brought in, it was unpacked and organized on a nedless tables at the back of the lobby. In the auditorium, the endless boxes of clothes that kept arriving were being organized. The clothes and the medical supplies were used and everyone was greatful for them, but the firemen, police officers and army personnel were particularly grateful for any clean socks and shoes that they could find. At one point, I remember running and getting socks for a fireman. I handed them to him, he put them on silently, put back on his boots, kissed my cheek, said thank you and went back out into the night. I know- I can't believe that happened either, but it did, and I will never, ever forget it. For that moment, I was the woman in the picture of the soldier kissing her in Times Square upon the announcement of the end of WWII.

At one point, a couple of the people I met on the bus earlier in the night, and I walked across Vesey Street and placed our feet right onto the mass of building that once was. I found myself feet away from the crushed ambulances and firetrucks. I stood still while people rushed around me. I told myself I was on a movie set and that this wasn't real, and then a firefighter dragging a half filled body bag walked past me. "Not a movie, "I thought. I didn't take picture of what I saw. I couldn't. We walked past buildings still smoldering. Dust covered everything and everyone, including me. We went back inside and sat down, albeit briefly and let ourselves breathe for a minute. Someone kept telling us to wear the masks that were given to us. I couldn't breathe in mine, I wore it on and off, but found it difficult to function with it on. This past January I came down with pneumonia, and though, "I should have worn that stupid mask."

After resting a bit on a cot, I saw someone in fatigues with a German Shepherd. The dog was panting exhaustedly, and the man was just hunched over his own knees sitting on a cot. I went over to him and asked if I could help. He said that he was worried about the dog, and that he wanted to get the dog some water but was too tired to move. I told the man to lie down and I went to get the dog some water. I can't remember what I poured the water (from a bottle- there were hundreds of water bottles lying around) into, but the dog drank a little and then laid back down.

From there, I went over to a woman who sat on another cot looking blankly into space. She had a stethascope around her neck. She had shoulder length curly brown hair and wore glasses. I put my arm around her and asked her if she was okay. "I think my brother must be dead," she said. I asked her why she thought that. She told me that the crushed ambulance I was in front of not 30 minutes before was his and the reason she came down to Ground Zero was to look for him, but then she got caught up in helping others, but that she was now realizing that he was most likely gone. I remember asking her, "Are you sure?" "she just nodded her head. She told me that she was a doctor and her brother was a first responder (I can't remember exaclty who she said he was). I asked her if there was anything I could do. She said no. We hugged and I think she tried to sleep for a little bit on the cot where we were sitting. I lost track her after that.

The night of 9/12/01 slowly turned into the day of 9/13/01, and as soon as light appeared over the horizon, workers started to go out with more furver. I don't know exactly what was going on outside, but from the break of dawn on it seemed like buildings or rubble were still falling, or perhaps being demolished, and after every rumbling explosion firefighters and other workers would run inside to the Stuyvesant's lobby where they would ask for eye care, oxygen, etc... One man, dressed in a navy jump suit with army boots on (I didn't know who he was) was being helped in after one of the rumbles, and had apparently stepped on something with a sharp point that came right back up at him, peircing his shin. the metal had been pulled out, but he was bleeding badly. Myself and two medical residents worked on him, first cleaning the wound, and then dressing it. I was sent to look for antibioitcs to give him. Within all of the medical supplies that were lying around, the only antibiotic I could lay my hands on was a pediatric dose of penicillin. I grabbed two vials, some diluent to dilute it and a syringe and ran back. The docs approved it (mainly b/c there was nothing else to give!), the man denied any allergy to penicillin and so I gave the IM injection in his left buttock. He then sat up, put back on his sock and boot and went, limping, back out. We asked him not to, but he wouldn't listen. I do remember that he did promise to get the wound looked at by that evening. I still wonder how his leg is.

Around 4P that afternoon, I got a call on my cell phone from the office where I worked. I was promptly yelled at for missing work, even though I had called and left a message saying where I was and what I was doing. I was told that my job was in jeopardy and tht I had better be at work in the morning. I got off the phone infuriated and crying. A police officer saw me and asked if everything was okay. I told him what had just transpired and he became angry as well. He promptly took out a small pad of paper and a pen, and took down my name and number and asked for the phone number of where I worked. He said, "I am going to call your office and tell them where you are and what you have been doing. They should be cheering you on, not threatening your job!"

I stayed there another couple of hours and then called a friend to come meet me, and help me get to my car. I was so shaken by the whole experience, plus having been scolded by one of my bosses was very upsetting. Here I though I was fulfilling my civic duty, but now, it seemed, I was getting punished for it.

My friend met me at my car, took me home, helped me get my bearings and then left me to sleep. I went to work the next morning, Friday, 9/14/01 and was scolded, but to this day, I know I did the right thing. If I helped even one person through that ordeal, then I knew I had done the right thing. I have no regrets in that regard, job be damned.

While I was down at Stuyvesant I spoke with a friend who was a physician in Queens and told her of the lack of antibiotics. She, in turn, called a drug rep that she knew and asked him to bring me a box of antibiotics that would be appropriate for various wounds and skin infections. That drug rep delivered them to me that Friday afternoon at the doctor's office where I worked. After work, I loaded them into my car and drove back downtown. This time, I went through less check points, but the few that I passed again waved me right through. I parked close to the Javits Center and asked an army sergeant how I could get these meds back to Stuyvesant, he pulled over a passing truck and loaded me and the meds onto it. I found myself in the front seat with a reservest called into duty from Maryland. We talked a little as he drove me through the streets where we passed the crushed and toppled cars I had seen on the news. He dropped me off at the back entrance of Stuyvesant. The place was empty. I was told that Fema came and sent everyone home. I was crushed. I walked throught the front, found a Fema tent and went on my way.

My story continues, but I think this is a good place to end. I will never forget.