GEOFFREY WHITE
Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO (AP) -- Emergency doctors who treated victims from the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon said the most discouraging thing was realizing how many patients they could never help.
``We saw things we did not want to see,'' said Thom Mayer, chairman of the department of emergency medicine at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, Va. ``We heard things we did not want to hear. We smelled things we did not want to smell. We thought thoughts we did not want to think.''
Mayer and four other doctors described the scene and the lessons of Sept. 11 on Tuesday night at the American College of Emergency Physicians' annual meeting.
``How did Dante know what the inside of the Pentagon would look like?'' Mayer asked, referring to the medieval Italian poet's depiction of hell. ``But he did.''
Mayer helped coordinate medical care at the Pentagon. Seeing such devastation up close ``helped me understand that all of you, each one of you, are heroes,'' Mayer told his colleagues.
Joseph Ornato, medical director of the Richmond Ambulance Authority in Richmond, Va., told of how he and other doctors in New York for a meeting followed a fire department lieutenant to the World Trade Center site and set up a triage site and temporary morgue.
Everything and everyone at ground zero was covered in gray ash, Ornato said.
``It was as if all the color had been drained out of the world,'' he said.
But Ornato said he and his colleagues were not heroes.
``The real heroes are the men and women who were there first and who were willing to go into harm's way to help their fellow man,'' he said.
The doctors said the response to the attacks illustrated the need for better security at emergency treatment sites and secure telephone lines between hospitals.
Tony Dajer, assistant medical director at New York University's Downtown Hospital four blocks from the World Trade Center, said after phone service was cut, his staff was transferring patients to other hospitals without knowing whether there would be space for them.
``We became, in effect, part of the disaster, not just the treaters of the disaster,'' he said.
Dajer, who was born in New York and watched the towers being built, said he and most of his staff went to ground zero once the rush of patients subsided so they could comprehend what had happened.
``I think everybody went down to help or just to see,'' he said.
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