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Super Moderator
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: New Jersey
Posts: 3,243
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My wife is opposed to using any chemicals on the lawn. I was out on the front lawn pulling weeds and crabgrass, and planting kentucky blue grass seed in its place, when I got a call from a friend. Neither my wife nor I can recall if we saw the second plane hit, when it happened, or if it just seems that way after seeing the replay so many times.
Prior to the attack, I planned on driving North, Upstate New York to bring my mother in law back down to stay with us for a few days. I planned on leaving later in the afternoon, instead, I put a scoped rifle with some ammo in my trunk (what was I thinking? Perhaps I would come across a trouper in a gun fight with some bad-guys, and I could pick them off at a safe distance of 300 yards?) I also considered packing a side arm. I don't recall what I decided about that. At any rate I wanted to get on the road before all the traffic that would be coming out of NYC. I left my EZPass at home so that there would be no digital foot print as I passed through the one toll booth to and from her house. So that was Tuesday.
At the time, I owned and controlled the most complete email and fax list of chiropractors in the state of NJ, and by default became the comunications chair for the state chiropractic society. On Friday afternoon the President of the state society called me, and said that a member suggested that the society have a team of doctors go to ground zero and give free chiropractic care to police and fireman and other rescue workers on site. He essentially dropped it in my lap.
I called a colleague friend of mine, discussed it and split up the back-ground work. We called the NJ and NY licensing boards. "Could a NJ licensed chiropractor work in NY without a NY license?"
We called the two predominant chiropractic malpractice carriers... "If a NJ doc went to ground zero, would he be covered?" When we got affirmative on all counts, (there were some qualifiers that one carrier wanted met) we decided that it could be done and that we could move forward.
The announcement was made.... a group of us would go to ground zero on Sunday... who is interested?
Well It struck me on Saturday, that someone needed to go to ground zero to make arrangments for a group of doctors to be most advantageously set up, so that they can do the most good. I told my wife that I needed to go to NY so that I could make arrangements. Unfortunately there was a planned birthday party for a nephew that day and it was planned that I would attend. You know guys... there are times that you pick your battles, and this was one of them for me. She told me that the entire area was on lock-down, and that I wouldn't be able to get in. She was right about the first part, but relented when I told her... "You know... that if anyone can get in, I'll get in."
I don't even know where to start.
When I got there, there was a stench in the air. I was asking... "Where are the chiropractors set up?" There were already some here, and there, groups of 3-6 at each location. There was no particular organization, one would have to stumble upon them.
One didn't have to worry about stumbling upon a first aid squad, or truck. They completely surrounded the site. I estimate 100-300 rigs with 6-8 man crews, all standing around chatting with each other for lack of anything to do. Perhaps out of boredom, it took a bit of probing to find out where the field command was, and who was co-ordinating medical staffing. What a mess. It is my understanding that Field command was originally set up on the ground floor of one of the towers, and when it came down it wiped out so much of the command personell, that they had to recall a number of retired command personell. If I recall correctly, when I finally had the opportunity to speak with someone in command I was instructed to work with/through the RedCross. Great people, they were helpful, just weren't able to give any particular direction.
In the course of the day I found three or four locations on site that chiropractors were giving care with enough regularity that some rescue workers knew that the chiropractors are usually at a particular location. I told the Jersey chiropractors of those locations.
On Sunday, two other collegues and I met at an IHOP and drove together to ground zero, all three of us are PBA physicians and have badges, and with our ID's were permitted admission. We cleared a section of the marble floor of the American Express lobby with shovels so that we had room for our two portable tables. All of the windows were blown out, and there was a forty-fifty foot assembly line of food servers set up to cook breakfast and feed the exhausted rescue workers. The place was filthy, dusty, and the air stunk. Amidst the debri there were a multitude of cots where rescue workers slept/rested out of pure exhaustion in that room. Those guys were out on the mound as it became to be called, with no respiratory protection, and then came back to sleep in this filth, only for a bit and then to go back out. Although I participated for approximately 10 days, Sat., Sunday, and Monday were probably the three days I was most exposed to the crap in the air, (asbestos, and concrete dust, and God knows what). As a result, I had an increased production of phelgm or irritation of my bronchii for six months to a year. I was never on the mound, where the exposure was MUCH WORSE! And I didn't get there until four days after the collapse. There were many on the mound without masks or filters, who had been working it for days.
There was so much visual clutter that your "world" was about 30 feet in front of you, maybe. At times it was only the length of your arm. There were elevated sidewalks made of plywood, under which tubes of water and or cables of electricity flowed. There were pages of paper posted to walls, poles, street signs, and buildings (announcing locations of food, medical care, the Red Cross tent, or whatever.) There were electric generators, fire-trucks, Red-Cross food vendor trucks. Buildings were boarded up and marked with spray paint indicating that it had been searched and cleared, or that it was structurally unsound. It was like a bombed out zone, and construction site rolled into one. As you navigate the area, you are looking to make sure that you don't trip on something, and that you don't bang your head, dispite the fact that you are probably wearing a hard hat. For me, it was unbelieveable.
When we left Sunday, and traveled North on West street, there were hundreds, perhaps thousands of people lining both sides of the street offering bottles of water and holding signs saying thank you, and calling us heros, that it made me cry. They were the people who were suffering, not me, I had a special abilty to help those who were really doing the search and rescue work, not me. On Monday, I took a different route home. I was too undeserving of their appreciation.
By Monday FEMA took over, and required that one obtain a FEMA ID card.. yeah hours of processing.
OK so we got processed, and made arrangements with the NYC harbor patrol to pick up the Jersey chiros on the Jersey side of the river and bring them to the NY side, hence obviating the commute, waiting in traffic, and looking for a legal parking spot. One thing that became obvious, and thrilling to be a part of, is the sense that everyone was working as a team. Some can only lend help at a support level, such as serving food, or breathing appartus, others may work to bring gas and oil to the generators, or others may work at the mound, searching for survivors. The point I am trying to make is that everyone worked as hard as he/she could to help each other help.
Please learn from my embarrassment.
There was a raggamuffen of a person who laid down on my adjustment table for a chiropractic adjustment. I gave him an adjustment, but didn't particularly go out of my way to look for muscle adhesions, or spasms that should be treated. Just the run of the mill treatment... now move on. This poor guy, I saw him again and again. He was a stock broker, not accustomed to the physical work that he endured day after day, making sure that the generators were running... full of fuel and oil. That they were moved to where they were needed most, and if they failed were replaced and taken for repair. He was a volunteer, working about 20 hours a day, for days on end. I still feel guilty for not giving him the BEST care that I could have the first couple of days that I worked on him.
There is another man that I pray for each time I go to church, and I pray that I never forget. He is a firefighter. Like many, it took a lot of coaxing to get him to come to the table and allow himself to get some physical relief and "pampering". By many, getting a chiropractic adjustment, when one should be focused on the task at hand is being a bit over-self -indulgent. This man, needed the care but was quite reticent at receiving the care. This man was a knoted wreck from the base of his skull, to his pelvis. For some reason I recall the tightness in his trapezius muscles (his upper back) in particular.
I was crushed when he told me that they had found one of their own. I asked if he knew him, and his response was. "I don't know... we took a finger."
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My grandkids call me Poppy!
Caveat Emptor, I'm not a mechanic, I just play make believe, here. Consider any and all of my suggestions with that in mind.
Last edited by Poppy; 09-14-2011 at 04:55 AM.
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