Reflections of a retired
NYC
Paramedic
“I was on the Staten Island Expressway heading in to my
station on Coney Island when PD closed the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. I was
using my volly lights and was being followed by a carload of firefighters in a
private SUV that may have come out of the Rescue-5 Station nearby. To this day
I don’t know if any of them survived, as many from that company died. We were
the only two vehicles on the bridge, with a bird’s eye view of the lower
harbor, when lower Manhattan just disappeared in a cloud of smoke. I remember
watching the sky as we crossed, afraid that the bridge could be the next
target…”
“I was hooked up with another off-duty medic from my station in a spare ambulance. We were assigned to a pier near 58th Street in Brooklyn. We received a lot of minor respiratory complaints, but no significant patients. All were handed off to BLS (Basic Life Support) units there. My partner and I sat listening to citywide radio for hours, trying to identify voices and radio numbers of friends as the reports of who was found, hospitalized, and still functioning came across the air. We also had a perfect view of the harbor as 7 WTC fell several hours later. The events of the day played out. I returned to the station around 11:00 PM and traded information with others who had been in Manhattan…”
“For the next few weeks staffing of the WTC functions was done primarily on overtime. My first and only shift was that Saturday. I was assigned to Liberty and Church, with a primary assignment to care for anyone injured while working the pile. I sat for almost sixteen hours just watching the devastation. I treated no one. The images on TV could not prepare you for the sights and smells…”
“After days of watching the replay of the events and entering the restricted zone, I just felt numb. I could not volunteer to go back in [to Ground-Zero]. I still consider myself pretty hardened and unaffected by the day-to-day things I’ve seen over the past 38 years, but I just could not bring myself to sign up for the overtime. I guess it was partly psychological and partly self-preservation, but I believe it’s the only reason I’m still hear today instead of joining my friends and partners who have died, or have cancer, or still suffer with severe respiratory illnesses and psychological disorders."
(Retired NYC Paramedic)
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