story1280.xml

story1280.xml

born-digital

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2002-08-20

I posted the following on 9/12/02 on my website, www.GoDaven.com:


In times like these, people often feel the need to record their own experiences, as well as to read about the eyewitness accounts of others. To that end, I decided to write down my experiences over the last 36 hours since the tragedy.

I was in my car on the Long Island Expressway on the way into New York City where I work as a senior Ophthalmology resident at New York University. I'm currently assigned to cover Bellevue Hospital. I usually take the Long Island Expressway to the Midtown Tunnel to enter the city, but since they were reporting long delays at the tunnel, I drove instead towards the Queensboro Bridge. As it turned out, if I?d have tried for the tunnel, I never would have been able to get into the city before the tunnel was closed.

I was listening to the news, and at about 8:45 AM, they went live to the traffic helicopter, which reported that they saw some kind of explosion at the World Trade Center. The reporters in the studio said they saw the same thing. For the next few minutes, there was some debate over whether the explosion came from inside the building or outside, until many eyewitnesses began calling in saying they saw a plane hit the building. Less than a minute after the plane hit, my car came over a rise on the highway, and I was treated to a beautiful view of the Manhattan skyline, with the very obvious difference today of a long, grey, banner of smoke drifting from the north tower of the World Trade Center, out eastward over Brooklyn. The smoke itself just looked like it would have come from a large chimney, or factory, until you saw that the source of it was the top 25% of the tower, totally engulfed in the smoke, with a small, almost imperceptible hint here and there of redness in the grey, evidence of flames. I looked around at the cars around me, and everyone was obviously looking right at the spectacle, with the same shocked expressions I was sure was on my face as well.

I left the highway at the exit for the bridge, and was stuck at a red light when, in a confusion of reporters and eyewitnesses calling in with conflicting information, it became clear that another plane hit the other tower. Until that point in time, I felt that the first plane hitting was a tragedy, yes, and perhaps an act of suicide or terrorism, but it was still the kind of thing we all could imagine might happen someday. From the time the second plane hit, until now as I write this, I?ve felt this pit in my stomach?it was now very obviously a terrorist attack of unprecedented proportions?nothing would ever be the same in this country?

I drove onto the Queensboro Bridge, and again had a panoramic view of the Manhattan skyline, now marred by the same billowing grey smoke, this time coming from both buildings. The large gash in the side of the first building was more obvious from this, closer, vantage point. As I was crossing the bridge, it was reported that all the bridges and tunnels into and out of the city were now closed to all traffic, and the entire airspace over New York was being ?sterilized? (their word), with all planes diverted elsewhere. I still saw in the distance, far to the west of the city, a plane in the distance, and I kept an eye on it to make sure it didn?t seem to be heading in my direction. I believe I was one of the last cars to make it across the bridge before it was closed.
I got off the bridge and turned south onto 2nd avenue, which I planned to take all the way down to Bellevue. Right away, the sound of sirens? Police car after police car, interspersed with ambulances and fire engines, came tearing down the center lane of 2nd avenue, with cars on either side parting to allow them to pass. I saw more rescue vehicles at that time than I?ve ever seen before in my life. Traffic began to slow more and more every few blocks, until at 38th street, it was a standstill. Before traffic could pile up behind me, I shifted into reverse, and pulled into the side street, where I parked. The sign said that parking was limited to trucks loading and unloading during the day, but I didn?t think the police were going to be busy distributing parking tickets on that day. I put an ID identifying myself as an MD in the dashboard, and left my car there. I walked from there to the hospital, which is on 27th St. and 1st Ave. In that short walk, it was clear that the city was in shock. People on the sidewalks were gathered around cars that were stuck in traffic, which opened their windows so everyone around could here the latest news, which included the fact that the Pentagon was hit as well. Looking down 2nd avenue, you couldn?t see the buildings themselves, but the dark grey stream of smoke was very evident, crossing the avenue all the way down south. Some people were shaking their heads in disbelief, some running southward in the direction of the buildings.

I arrived at the hospital, and went up to my office. I encountered some residents who had no idea what was going on, and notified them of the situation. We were all informed that everything normally planned for the day, including all clinics, as well as all elective surgery, was cancelled. I quickly changed into my scrubs, and called up the patient I was scheduled to perform cataract surgery on that afternoon. He told me that the hospital had already called him to tell him the surgery would be postponed. I took the bag my wife had packed my lunch in, dumped out the food, and quickly filled it up with everything I could think we would need for any eye emergencies that would arrive: eye patches, eye shields, penlights, tape, gauze, all types of eye drops and ointments. I joined a few of the other residents, and we all went downstairs to Bellevue?s Emergency Dept. Right before we went down, I found out that a patient we had been managing for the past 2 weeks in the hospital with a very serious eye infection was being discharged home immediately, along with every other non-seriously-ill patient in the hospital, to clear up as my hospital beds as possible.

The Emergency Dept. was absolutely packed, but with doctors, not patients. While the ED would usually, at that time in the morning, be moderately full with various types of patients, all non-essential patients were either being turned away by triage, or being sent elsewhere. Literally hundreds of doctors were quickly putting on gowns, gloves, and masks. While a team was selected to man each bed in the ED, all the other doctors (including myself) and medical students were herded into one central area. The sight of every single stretcher in the emergency dept. lying empty was shocking, and I?m sure many had never seen the ED that empty of patients ever before. Tape and markers were passed around so everyone could label themselves, allowing everyone to immediately identify everyone else?s function. I wrote ?Ophthalmology ? PGY-4? (post-graduate year 4), and smoothed the label across my chest. I was thinking about how long it had been since my Emergency rotation in my 3rd year of medical school , and hoped I remembered enough to be able to do what was needed, should it be necessary.

Then, the waiting began? and continued?

As we were standing around, the head physician in charge kept shouting out announcements, everything from ?Keep the hallways clear? to ?No ambulances are able to make it into the area yet?all patients are currently being evacuated by boat?. Supplies for each station were checked and rechecked. As it was lunchtime, food arrived and was distributed. The food distributor apologized 3 times to me that he had no Kosher food yet, and I reassured him not to worry. Still, as it was still quiet, I figured that it was a good time to actually grab a quick lunch, during the calm before the expected storm.

I went upstairs with another resident, and wolfed down a quick lunch while we watched on a TV replays of both buildings collapsing. A few minutes later, we went back down to the ED, where a surprisingly small number of patients were being brought in. Still, those that were arriving were a grim testimony to the degree of absolute destruction that had taken place. Missing body parts, blood spilling, neurosurgeons being called, X-ray technicians wheeling their equipment from patient to patient to snap shots, but everything was apparently under control, with many more doctors standing around than were needed. With our biased view, my fellow residents and I took a quick peek at the eyes of every patient wheeled past us, to see if we?d be needed. We talked about how busy we expected to be later in the day, as patients would start arriving. We expected it to be the busiest day of our career, as went through the calculations ? 50,000 people in the immediate area around the hospital, with a large number of patients being brought to us, with the inevitable large number of eye injuries?I fully expected to be working nonstop for the next 48 hours, at least. We wondered if the hospital would spare an operating room for us to perform eye surgery, if needed, of if they?d keep all the rooms in reserve for lifesaving, instead of vision-saving, surgeries.

As there was clearly no need for us to stand around in the middle of the ED, we found a room in the Urgent Care unit, right next door, which we adopted as our station. We set up a radio there, so we could listen to the latest developments in the news all day. I announced over the loudspeaker where were located, so all patients with any kinds of eye problems could be brought to our attention. In the adjoining rooms, orthopedic surgeons and other non-urgent care medical specialists had set up shop, as well, to deal with simple broken bones and an assortment of other non-life critical aches and pains.

Then, finally, a steady stream of patients were brought to us to manage. Over 95% of the patients we took care of, throughout the day and into the night, were firemen and paramedics. We didn?t see any ?civilians? who had been inside the buildings at the time. Every one of the rescue workers was covered with a thin layer of gray soot. We were warned by one fireman that if were to examine anyone with a significant amount of the soot, we should keep our masks on, because of a fear of asbestos. Nearly everyone had the same exact eye injuries ? chemical conjunctivitis and mild corneal abrasions, both from the thick smoke and debris.

Every fireman had a story to tell. One was about to enter the elevator in the second building when the first building collapsed. The wave of debris sweeped over him and the others in the area, and in the process of trying to escape the building, they were all knocked to the ground, by a combination of the force of the debris as well as everyone tripping over each other. With a thick layer of debris on top of him, he began crawling forward, not sure in what direction he was heading. He came to a grate, which he moved out of the way, and a few minutes later, emerged outside. He was fortunate to escape with mild eye and knee injuries, but had no idea if any of the other firemen in his team had survived. Others had been outside when the buildings came down. We didn?t see a single rescue worker who told a story of being anywhere above the ground floor ? the reasons why were obvious.
At about 4:00 PM, we sent most of the residents home. As the chief resident who was already scheduled to be on call this week, I stayed in the hospital throughout the night, along with two first-year residents. Many of the residents refused to leave right away, insisting on helping well into the night, until it was clear they were no longer needed to handle the influx of patients, which had clearly begun slowing down as the evening wore on. One 2nd-year resident insisted on spending the night with us as well, stating that this was the reason he went into Medicine in the first place.

Once things began quieting down, I left the building to go find a quick dinner. I was shocked by how different the city streets were than usual. New York seemed like a ghost town ? very few cars were on the road, with few pedestrians as well. First avenue was cordoned off by the police for a few blocks in either direction from the hospital to allow any ambulances to get the hospital as quickly and conveniently as possible. The only vehicles parked on the street by the hospital were police cars, and news vans from every major TV network. Finding a taxi proved to be impossible. A steady stream of rescue vehicles with lights flashing drove downtown toward the scene. On a few streetcorners, people had set up TV sets, with small groups of people gathered around. When I reached Lexington Avenue, both sides of the street were packed with long lines of taxis parked, with no drivers inside them ? I had no idea why. The long cloud of smoke was still visible in the sky. The hospital entrance was cordoned off by the police, and to get back in, I had to show my ID ? there has never been such tight security at Bellevue before.

Back at the hospital, things were very quiet. We began seeing fewer and fewer patients, until we found ourselves just sitting around, talking and listening to the news. We kept walking around the main area of the ED, looking for anyone who many need any help, but still, there were many more doctors available than were needed for the few patients that were there. I walked outside to the ambulance receiving area, where there were over 100 doctors and nursing standing around, simply waiting for ambulances to arrive.

The night was quiet. Depressingly so. I wished we would have been busy. I wish I could say we spent all night taking care of a continuous stream of survivors that were pulled out of the wreckage, who were fortunate to only have serious eye injuries. I wish I could have seen some kind of indication that the rescue effort downtown was meeting with some success, sending patients in droves to our ED, but it was, sadly, very quiet. It became very clear that not only was the rescue process going slowly, but that it was bodies that were being found, and not survivors. The night was quiet.

The next day, Wednesday, was quiet as well. Another cataract surgery I had scheduled was cancelled, as well, in order to keep the operating rooms available for trauma surgery on patients that never came. Only one of the patients I had scheduled for the afternoon was able to come and see me, and that was only because he lived just a few blocks from the hospital. All my other patients were unable to make it into the area because of the imposed travel restrictions.

Things remained quiet at the hospital, with just a few additional people showing up with eye irritation from the smoke and debris over the course of the day. After 31 hours at the hospital, I decided it was time to go home. Walking to my car it was apparent that the city was slowly returning to some semblance of normalcy. The dark cloud was no longer as prominent, and there was slightly more traffic in the streets. There was still a steady stream of rescue vehicles heading downtown. There was one long caravan of 19 dump trucks, heading slowly down 2nd avenue with police escort.

In front of Bellevue, reporters from the various networks were interviewing family members of those missing, who had come to the hospital in the hopes of finding their loved ones. Every one had pictures that they were showing to the cameras, announcing their telephone numbers in the hope that someone with information would call them. The building next to Bellevue was set up as a gathering area for family members of the missing, and the scene of hundreds of people either crying or wiping away old tears was truly horrific. Interspersed among them were clergymen, including a Rabbi or two, and vehicles labeled ?Mortuary? were parked along the street.
I?m home now, typing this on my computer, still wearing my scrubs in case I get called back to the hospital. My pager is quiet. The junior residents who are spending the night in the hospital know to call me with any kind of problem at all, but my pager is quiet. I would expect that by now, there should be a lot of people who had other body injuries taken care of, and will now be seeking help with their eyes, but my pager is quiet. Thousands of people missing, injured, and dead, and my pager is quiet. I wish it would go off, I wish it would start beeping, announcing that yes, there is another survivor we can treat and improve their quality of life, but my pager is quiet. I find it ironic that in the past, whenever I?ve been on call, I?ve wished for my pager to stay quiet, but tonight, I pray that it wakes me.