A cardiology conference and, in another case, a visit with friends put at least two UW-affiliated physicians in the vicinity of the Sept. 11 destruction of the World Trade Center. Together with their families and colleagues, they volunteered their skills for the response effort.
Leon Greene, Jr., a clinical professor of medicine in the Division of Cardiology, left a New York City medical conference to treat firefighters, police officers, and evacuated office work area. He helped at an outdoor medical station four blocks from the World Trade Center.
The medical station was in front of the Traveler's Insurance building. Office workers brought out tables and chairs for patients, and easels and coat racks for intravenous poles. Nearby apartment residents gave blankets, pillows and home medical supplies. A trucker carrying bottled water unloaded it at the scene, and a homeless man directed traffic around the medical station.
"Volunteers came out of the woodwork. Acts of heroism were performed as if routine," Greene wrote in an e-mail to his friends at Harborview Medical Center.
On Sept. 11, Wesley "Wes" Van Voorhis, professor of medicine in the Division of Allergy and Infectious Disease, was visiting friends in New York City. Upon learning of the attack, he and his wife, Debra Jarvis, an ordained minister and former phlebotomist, went to the New York Blood Center. They took a quick course in the center's protocols and drew blood from people of more nationalities than they can remember.
Afterward, Jarvis volunteered as a chaplain at the downtown Armory, the site for filing missing person reports and for providing DNA samples. She found that the cops working in this situation craved everyday conversation. The most valuable thing she could do was talk with them about baseball and traffic.
Van Voorhis was impressed with the resiliency of the people in New York and with so many people caring for one another during the crisis.
