World Trade Center
New York, New York
World Trade Center
New York, New York
Members of Medicine International participated in the urban search and rescue effort in the aftermath of the World Trade Center disaster. Two of our physicians, Herb Sigmond and Jack Ellis, and two paramedics, Bruce Hagan and David Moorer, traveled to New York City as part of a 62- member federal search and rescue team sponsored by the Oakland Fire Department. Their jobs were to care for the other search team members and any potential victims unearthed in the weeks following this tragic event. Dr. Mark Stinson was also called as Medical Incident Support Team deputy leader. He was responsible for coordinating medical care of urban search and rescue teams in addition to liaisoning with the other groups (City of New York, police, fire, OSHA, NIOSH, press, volunteers, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Public Health Service, etc.) involved in this event.
The urban search and rescue team is prepared to be called up any time, and must be capable of assembling at a predetermined deployment center within 2 hours of call up, and ready to board a military transport within 6 hours. Teams are completely self-sufficient for 3 days including food, water and shelter. Search equipment including concrete cutting saws and drills, fiber-optic cameras, special listening devices, and so on, are also included in the cache. Oakland's team was one of 20 search and rescue teams called from throughout the country to respond to this tragic event.