story1211.xml

story1211.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-08-19

I was the Admitting Medical Resident for Cabrini Medical Center (The medical center is about 1 mile from the WTC.) from 8am, September 10th to 8am, September 11th. It's a twentyfour hour shift in which I oversee all the admissions to the hospital. If you come into our emergency department and are deemed sick enough to be admitting to the hospital, I would come interview you and perform a physical exam. I would look over the lab and testing data, then assign your case to one of the second year residents. I would make sure the resident and the intern completed their work and didn't miss anything. It's a time consuming job, and the hospital gives you next twentyfour hours off to rest.

Our morning reports are 8:30am-9:30am every weekday. I was in morning report with the rest of the house staff, just waiting for it to end so I could go home and go to sleep. At about 8:50am, the Chief Resident came in and interrupted the conference.

"Guys," he said, "a plane just hit the World Trade Center. We're going to get a lot of wounded. This conference is canceled, and I need all of you to go to the floors and discharge as many patients as you can. Everyone is on call, no one turn off you beepers. Go." And with that we went to clear the floors. We had no idea what kind of plane it was, where it hit, or anything else.

Since I'm one of the senior residents, I went up to the general medical floors to oversee the discharges. I stopped by the cardiac intensive care unit on the ninth floor, because it had an unobstructive view of the twin towers, which were about 30 blocks away. Black smoke was pluming out of one of the towers. I grabbed the phone on the wall and called my wife Janice, as I knew she was still at home and had not left for work yet (she works uptown, near Mt. Sinai Hospital, about 103rd Street. Our apartment is on 19th Street.).

"Hello?" she answered.

"Janice!", I said. "Turn on the TV!"

"What channel?"

"Any channel," I said. "Just turn it on." While she was turning on the TV, I looked back at the towers. At that moment, the 2nd airliner smashed into the other building.

My heart, my whole being, just stopped. Realization hit like a lightning bolt that we, WE...New York City and The United States of America, were under lethal attack. No armies, no bombs. They were smashing planes directly into our faces. My adrenaline surged. "Oh my God", I said into the phone. "We're under attack".

"What?" said Janice.

"Janice...stay in the apartment. Don't go on the subways. Stay off the busses. DON'T DRIVE. They just smashed two planes into the Twin Towers. I'm not coming home for awhile." By now, she had the TV on, and was watching.

I ran through the floors, telling the residents to redouble their efforts. Sirens were going off non-stop. I reported to the emergency room. We had every doctor there, even ones off duty. One guy came who was vacationing from California but had done his training at Cabrini. We got everything ready for the onslaught of maimed bodies and burned flesh that would inundate us. The ambulance parking lot was turned into a decontamination unit. The police academy, which Mayor Guiliani would later turn into his HQ, was blocking off our shared street for emergency traffic only.

We waited. And waited. No one came. The sirens all went south...none came back north. The first tower fell. Our chief resident came to me and said, "Todd...go home. Get your sleep. We're going to need seniors later tonight. Turn off your beeper. We'll work today, and you'll work tonight."

"Okay....sure, sure..I'll leave my beeper on, though. Call me if you need anything." I didn't want to leave. I wanted to help. But I understood they'd need a lot of manpower later that night. I went home. I turned on CNN. The second tower fell. I looked out my window, facing west on 3rd avenue...No cars anywhere. The street was FILLED with people. More people than you ever see on a New York City Street. The sidewalks and streets were filled with people walking. 95% of them were walking north, away from the tower. 25%-50% of them were covered in that white dust you saw everyone wearing on TV. The air, oh GOD the air was acrid and stinging. It smelt like burnt plastic, burning polyvinylchoride or what have you. The air was so thick and smoking I felt as if I was about to choke on it.

Janice was not home. She had gone to work, mainly to get further north and away from the towers. But she was stuck there. Phones were out, and she could could not come back south, back home.

We waited, and waited, and waited. We treated and released a couple of hundred people in the parking lot for smoke inhalation and rinsing off of the dust, but we didn't admit a single patient that day. Simply because, not enough survived. People that made it out made it out fine. There was no "halfway".

That was a Tuesday. Our hospital did not get admissions until Thursday. On Thursday morning/Wednesday night, the wind shifted to blow north, smothering Manhattan with the full force of that burning, acrid smoke. People couldn't breath. Asthmatics were in terrible danger. We admitted a lot of sickly, elderly, and weakened people for the next few days. The air remained acrid for about a month...some days better, some days worse, but always there.

That was my September 11th, 2001. I felt STRONG. New Yorks response gave me strength. We came together. We fought back with bravery, duty, and care.