nmah4097.xml

nmah4097.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

As a Paramedic and hospital employee in Cleveland, OH.- I had a premonition- at approximately 0800, I stood up from my desk, reached for my purse and announced to my co-worker that I was going to another building in the hospital complex. She asked my "why the purse?" and I explained that I only did this if there was a chance that something would happen and I wouldn't be able to get back to my desk, that this way, if I could get to my car, I'd have keys, ID & money. Now, I hadn't done this anytime in the previous eight months!

I was walking down the hall when I was paged about the 1st crash from an acquaintance in our helicopter/medical flight office. It took approximately 15 minutes to get on the internet, then find a radio, then to access a TV.

I have 20+ yrs working and planning for disasters, and had a grasp of the enormity of the rescue effort that was going to be needed, even before the second attack, when we thought the first tower would stand. I was terribly affected when I realized that would be rescuers had become victims. I was glued to the media sources for approximately 90 minutes- as a Critical Incident Stess Debriefer I then realized that I was only increasing my stress level, so when things in Cleveland started getting strange- a possible "bomb plane" at landing at Hopkins Airport the support staff were given an option to leave to take care of family situations, etc. I volunteered to report to the hospital's emergency staff rather than go home, leaving my husband in the ED, to sit glued to the TV screen.

Although I am not currently employed in the ED, I am familiar with staff and procedures because of my past and because my spouse worked there, so when I walked in and reported to the Supervisor that I was available for support work- I was immediately put to work. The first assignment was to call EVERYONE who normally worked in the ED (no matter what their shift) and to tell them that the hospital was in "disaster mode" and to report as soon as they could get through the massive traffic jams. This involved TELLING many staffers who normally slept days about what had happened because they had been sleeping or hadn't had their TVs on. Our normal staffing issues had become aggravated because the ED had several staff (nurses and MD)who had just realized that family and close associates had probably died, and several others who had to leave to take care of small children, because some schools and pre-schools had sent children home early.

The hospital is a designated "receiving center" for national disaster victims, and we were gearing up for an influx of an unknown number of "walking wounded" that might have been flown to Cleveland from NYC, so my next assignment was to assist in the preparation of patient packets, triage tags and body bags. Here a major flaw in the hospitals' preparations was discovered- that 25 "victim packets" simply probably wouldn't be enough to handle the 200-250 patients we were expecting- and there was no place to get triage tags etc. made up- so an employee went on the internet, found a PICTURE of a triage tag, which was then printed by the hospital print shop! We then hand numbered them (six numbers per side) and tied toe tag strings in each. Assembling the rest of the packets took six of us volunteers, drawn from different departments approximately 3 hours.

All this time, we are being showered by images from the media onthe attack - and speculation about "where else was going to be attacked". I personally was immensely affected by a camera catching a victim lying on the street, covered in dust and (to my trained eyes) dying- probably from blast injuries. Our hospital staff was invaluable in relaying parts of the bigger picture, particularly when all flights were grounded.

By the time I was released from duty it was 8 PM Cleveland/NYC time) and I was more than ready to go home with my husband, but was up all night monitoring events and reactions around the world, via the internet and TV.

As someone trained in Critical Incident Stess Debriefing I realized that I would NOT be able to work this through myself, so I went for counselling for the nightmares and flashbacks, but even just typing this causes my hands to shake.

It has also made me more aware of the need for personal and family preparation.

1. That how fragile life is, that even if we surround ourselves with "safety", that there will always be an element of insecurity.
2. That one definition of a "disaster" is a "sudden occurance of an event that is too large for the appropriate group to handle" and therefore the most important thing in disaster response planning is a reasonable, accurate evaluation of your (group's) capability.

We fly the flag. I was raised to be respectful of our flag and what it represented- now I am FIERCELY proud of the CITIZENRY it represents. Our citizens KNEW what needed to be done- it didn't take an order from some government official for relief supplies to flow.