From the WebMD Archives
Sept. 26, 2001 — They’re the people at a spot dubbed “Ground Hero” — the firemen, the police, the hundreds of support people trying to cart away the wreckage and retrieve the bodies left after a national tragedy.
There’s obvious physical risk, if the wreckage collapses even more. But there’s also the emotional toll that trauma and exhaustion takes. How are these modern-day heroes faring?
It’s the end of his 12-hour shift, and Les Dixon — an ER physician from Utah — says he’s “41 going on 60 this morning.” He’s part of the 62-member, four-dog Utah Task Force, one of many that have migrated to New York City and the nation’s capital.
“I’ve been up all night, happily,” Dixon tells WebMD.
“You and I both know there are many, many people who wish there was something they could do to help here,” he says. “We’re just lucky enough that we can. We’ve contributed a little sweat and more than a few tears.”For excerpts from the interview with Les Dixon, click on Words From Ground Zero in related links.
View From the New York Command Center
Dixon staffs a field hospital on-site, to handle rescue workers’ blisters, scrapes, puncture wounds, headaches, acid indigestion — “the minor stuff,” he says.
He spoke with WebMD from the rescue command center, some two miles from Ground Zero, the less-patriotic name for the same tragic spot. When the interview is over, he will head upstairs where cots have been lined up military style. It’s not particularly quiet, certainly not plush. But rescue workers don’t have much trouble sleeping, Dixon says. “It’s exhausting work.”
“The devastation is impossible to appreciate, unimaginable,” he tells WebMD.
“It’s the biggest pieces of steel you’ve ever seen, just like spaghetti noodles, all twisted and torn. … The metal veneer, the aluminum veneer — it’s like knife blades. They have to be real careful about that stuff … wear good, thick boots, long-sleeved clothes, knee and elbow pads.”
Very few human remains are in this wreckage. Much was incinerated. “I didn’t appreciate how much fire there was here that day,” Dixon says. “Ever since we got here, we haven’t seen open flames, but it continues to smoke. Even though it rained two or three different days, it just continues to smoke.”
Shattered lives, shattered bodies — that’s quite literally what happened on Sept. 11. “The sheer destructive force of collapsed metal and concrete was powerful enough that most human remains are in very small pieces, mostly covered with dirt and debris so they’re easy to miss,” he says.
“We came here prepared for anything, with the hope that we would find people, be able to offer them a high level of expedient hospital care,” Dixon says.
That just didn’t happen. There were very few injuries, only death, at Ground Zero. “There’s no medicine to be practiced here,” he says. “That was clear from the beginning.”
Crews Facing Their Own Emotions
Rescue squads are trained to handle just about anything — but 6,000 casualties, the way it all transpired in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania — “this just wasn’t on anybody’s radar screen,” says Stephen Pierrel, PhD, director of psychological services for the Houston Fire Department.
Houston firefighters were among those deployed in recent days to New York.
Focusing on the job at hand may be necessary for safety reasons, but it also helps rescuers get past their personal reactions, the emotions, says Pierrel, who is also assistant professor of family and community medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
“It’s their way of protecting themselves, focusing on the systematic work of digging, hauling,” he tells WebMD. “Feelings come when they’re by themselves. That’s when the gravity of what they’re doing sinks in.”
For New York firefighters, this tragedy is particularly devastating. “A guy may be looking for somebody he worked with, maybe someone’s son, someone’s father. New York City has lots of multigenerational families that go into firefighting.”
Then too, there’s survivor guilt — the firefighters who, by chance, were off that day, the dispatchers who sent others in. “They feel like they sent those people to their deaths, to their doom. It’s very difficult.”
Pierrel went to Oklahoma City to help counsel those rescue crews.
Debriefing — rescuers sharing their stories with each other — that’s how they get out emotionally intact, says Pierrel. “We get the team together, talk to them about what went on, what things are staying with them, if they’re having trouble sleeping, eating, in what ways they’re still hurting.”
It’s validation of what they’ve been through, reassurance that they are “having normal reactions to abnormal events,” he says.
Case in point: “Maybe an emergency vehicle driver got into an accident en route to a hospital. He thinks no one will trust him again. Another guy throws him the keys, says ‘you can drive me anytime.’ The first guy realizes he’s not a pariah to the company. It takes that validation from another firefighter for that guy to heal.”
Debriefing also helps put normal life into perspective, once they return home. “When their son or daughter says this horrible thing happened at school, they won’t say ‘you don’t know what terrible is.’ It helps them calibrate their experience. It helps them keep their humanity.”
The Lasting Memory: Camaraderie, Tireless Volunteers
The rescue teams will continue to come and go in shifts, from every part of the country, working in two-week cycles.
But those New York firefighters — they are still on the scene, still looking for their own. “There are countless stories of firefighters who are there to find a friend, a brother,” says Dixon.
Some have not yet admitted to themselves that there’s little hope left, he tells WebMD.
“There’s a difficult balance in deciding what you can do, what you can’t, what’s safe and what’s not. What’s the benefit of saving a life vs. losing two or three more in the rescue effort? It would be a horrible tragedy to have someone else killed trying to rescue somebody already dead.”
Right now, there’s a New York firefighter digging, determined to find his brother, says Dixon. “He knows within a 50-by-50-foot area where he and his comrades are, but he can’t get to them. He’s found their rope; he knows that’s where they are. But he can’t get to the end of the rope. He’s still digging for the end of that rope.”
Dixon expects his team to be on site for about another day.
“My memories,” he says, “probably won’t be nightmares. They’ll likely be of the people I’ve met here, a tireless, devoted, and selfless crowd. It’s left me with a very healthy respect for the camaraderie of New Yorkers, Americans, people around the world.”
Related link – A rescuer speaks, Words From Ground Zero
