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A Doctor’s Account From The World Trade Center

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On September 12, Jeff and Marietta Nilson of Harwich, MA received an email from their daughter Elizabeth, a doctor on duty near the World Trade Center during the disaster. In her letter, Elizabeth relays her firsthand accounts and personal reactions to the events and their aftermath. Jeff shared his daughter’s words on our listener line.

As I sit in my office this morning I am watching the sun come up over a very different view outside.

There is ash everywhere – my office is filled with a fine layer of soot. The smell of charred material persists in the air.

Our ride down from East 15th street was quiet. We were stopped numerous times by state police and the military. “Doctors” was the call and they let us through. Sadly, that is not what is needed down here. It looks like it has snowed. Above the hospital there is a crescent moon with a small planet or star just below – the symbol on an Islamic nation flag if I remember. Where two imposing towers stood there is only faint blue sky and smoke.

We sat in our first grand rounds lecture and ten minutes into hearing about mammography several loud booms echoed. We all ran to the windows and saw smoke from the tower. “A plane hit it” someone yelled and we thought for a moment of an errant small craft that must have been only able to nick the tower. Then someone said jet and we ran to the ER. As we arrived and tried to get organized it quickly became clear what had happened. Many of the patients we saw had superficial and not so superficial lacerations. One patient was burned over her entire body. Another man lay with his brains leaking out. Some significant fractures. Then the tower went down and the air filled quickly with a thick smoke that covered everything. We donned masks and kept at it. Then many more came in covered in inches of ash, and more injuries. Some nearly catatonic patients – shocked because of what they saw, shocked by nears misses of themselves or loved ones, shocked from being trampled. We were all in high gear, everyone working hard and fast and smoothly and calmly. Only during the pause of elevator rides would eyes well up – only to be gone a moment later as the doors opened. And then it all slowed down. And we waited and few others came. We caught up and continued to wait. We began to hear the horror stories – of people jumping 100 stories away from the smoke. A firefighter killed when a body landed on him. Shoes and body parts and flames and smoke. Frantic efforts at calls. Frantic emails to loved ones. People stunned into silence. And the image of innocent children in the Middle East jumping for joy. And shock. Called to say we could take more patients. There were none.

We planned shifts and continued to wait. Nothing to do but sit in our now ash-covered clothes and watch TV. At about seven, Warren, Bruce and I walked over. We could not get further than Broadway, about a block away. Smoke and ash continued to fill the air, burn lungs despite two masks and sear your eyeballs. The triage center there was filled with EMS workers, gurneys and supplies. But no patients. The entrance to the lobby of I think an insurance company was framed by cars covered in ash, deformed. Trees were gnarled. Paper was everywhere. We picked up someone’s tax return. Windows a block away were blown out. Someone had written in the ash “USA #1″ And something about peace and John 3:16 (the Christian among you will have to let us know what the allusion was to). They wouldn’t let us closer. Through the smoke we could faintly see 40 feet of steel in what used to be a courtyard.

We walked back through dark streets (7 WTC collapsing had been a diminutive echo of earlier events, but left us without electricity and on the generator).

As we left, faint hope rose with word that the triage center had sent for surgeons, cutdown trays, and amputation kits from the hospital. Our ride home up the FDR was quiet.

I burst into tears walking down my corridor, seeing my apartment door. Then I hugged Jen.

The TV echoed all the same stories. A few new tragedies. An arrest of a van on its way to the GW Bridge. Talk of explosives. Went to sleep with a profound sense of uncertainty.

My alarm is set the NPR station downtown. No signal because the radio tower was atop one of the towers. Only static awoke me.

When I turned on the TV at 5:30, more loss. I again burst into tears.

And we headed down at 6AM, through soldiers sleeping under fatigue blankets in the doorways of shops. The sun was starting to rise on a deep blue sky. It was quiet, still. Downtown looked like a movie set. Large lights were being taken away on flatbed trucks. There is word that the Millennium Hotel continues to burn and will collapse.

In the hospital life and death go on. The first patient through the door was a 94 year old woman found unresponsive by her home health aide. She had suffered a large bleed and herniated. As I wrote her admission note, about the gravity of her condition, it seemed surreal. She died last evening. We were still trying to reach her family.

This morning a code. A man with COPD.

I am going to walk over now – for want of anything else.

I love you all. Remember what is important to you. Really important.

Li

About Elizabeth Nilson
Doctor Elizabeth Nilson is 34 years old, grew up in Harwich on Cape Cod and is named after her grandmother who was a registered nurse. She works at Beekman, the downtown NYC hospital.

How to Share Your Story
You may call and leave a message on the WCAI/NAN listener line at 508-548-9600, ext. 103, fax us at 508-548-5517 or you may send us an e-mail at editorial@transom.org.

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