September 11, 2001
Saturday, Sept. 11, 2004, 09:10
I remember this date very well. Much like my mother's generation remembers where they were when Kennedy was shot in Dallas. I was working in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and we had just finished our morning rounds of vent checks and blood gases. All of the X-rays were checked, all of the ETT tubes were secure and all the little ones were tucked in. That was when someone said that an airplane had hit the World Trade Center. I thought at first that a small plane of some sort had just gotten off course or had engine trouble and had "accidentally" hit the building.
A television was brought out into the Unit, so that we could watch the news footage. Everyone continued to work, stopping occasionally to see what was happening on the news. I had paused to see the latest developments when the second plane hit at about 9 AM or so. I saw it happen and suddenly realized that this was no accident, it was a deliberate attack and it had been executed perfectly. I had to sit down, tears welled in my eyes and I realized that anyone of us at any time could be wiped out in an instant, if a terrorist decided it was our turn. I started to think of all the likely targets in my area,such as the nuclear plants and dams. My children were in school in fact just miles from a nuclear plant. Chattanooga seems like an unlikely place for an attack, but then again so did the WTC and the Pentagon on that particular morning. We were all going about business as usual.
My cell phone went crazy, receiving all sorts of unusual calls from numbers that were foreign to me. I became concerned and sent a text message to my friend Doug who is in the Air Force to see if he was OK, he answered with a short "Things are fine...just busy now." I still have that message in my cell phone, the time stamp was 09/11 01:33 PM. More than likely I will leave it there choosing to delete everything else when the memory gets full, just as I have done for the last three years.
My heart goes out to everyone who lost a loved one on September 11th and to the rest of the world which deals with terror everyday. It sounds cliche now, but Rodney King did have the right idea when he asked why can't we all just get along.
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