On Sept. 11, 2001, Dr. Selim Suner was spending time with his six-month-old son at home in North Kingstown before heading to a meeting at Rhode Island Hospital. Just hours later, he’d find himself traveling to New York City, leading a local emergency-response team deployed to help treat victims of the deadliest terrorist attack in American history.
Twenty-five years later, Ocean State Media morning host Luis Hernandez spoke with Suner about his experience at Ground Zero and its impact on him and his team.
On being deployed to Ground Zero
Dr. Selim Suner: I was the team leader for the Rhode Island Disaster Medical Assistance Team, which is a federal disaster response team. It's a team of several hundred people with different backgrounds: physicians, nurses, paramedics, logistics specialists. We were on call that month. As I got to the hospital, I met with some of the other team members who were also Rhode Island Hospital employees, and we got a call saying that, "Get ready, you're going to be moving in."
I mean, those images on TV were so striking and we were just trying to wrap our heads around what's going on. Is this the beginning of a war? What's going to happen? How is life going to be after this? At the same time, we're medical professionals and we were expecting to save people's lives and treat people when we got there. In a leadership position, my thoughts were, “How am I going to keep my team safe and how are we going to best utilize our expertise in this scenario?”
On his reaction after arriving at Ground Zero
Dr. Suner: It was the closest to war that… It was war. There was smoke, there was debris. It was like it was bombed, which essentially it was. There were fires still burning because of the pressure of those huge amounts of concrete and steel coming down at once. The temperatures at Ground Zero were very high. There was smoke there for weeks, fires burning and debris all over the place. There was dust, papers, everything was dark because of the smoke. The first night when we were doing the scouting, it was raining. I remember that. And we were in the rain and it was just such a surreal sight. Never forget it.
On providing medical treatment to first responders
Dr. Suner: So yeah, we thought there were thousands of people in those buildings that were going to be rescued. We were going to do initial treatment, but by the time we got there, the New York City medical system had treated all the survivors in the local hospitals there. Our mission changed overnight to treating the rescuers. We treated thousands of police, fire, military personnel, construction workers, search-and-rescue team members, and their dogs. And the initial days were very emotional because there were firefighters (and) police officers who were victims, and their colleagues, their friends, were frantically searching in the rubble. It was a very dangerous operation.
On the reception of New Yorkers
Dr. Suner: So this was an unusual disaster site. It was New York City. The first few nights we spent outdoors, but then we were allocated to hotel rooms. We did 12-hour shifts and were taken to the site in a bus. On the way over, the roads would be lined by citizens of New York City thanking us. And for our meals, they had celebrities dishing out stew and soup. I remember Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick serving us lunch and having conversations with them. Don King was there. It was a New York City event.
On the legacy of September 11th
Dr. Suner: It was a turning point in all our lives. Everything changed after 9/11. I mean, we used to go to the airport and meet people at the airplane. Can't do that anymore. That's all after 9/11. A lot of our freedoms were curbed to provide security and safety. It was a different time before then, and it's a different time now. People who lived through that- I have friends who were near there and had to walk home covered in dust. As Americans, we were sort of protected from those type of events, and 9/11 changed that. It brought it home.
