SEPT. 11, 2001
CONNECTICUT REFLECTS 20 YEARS AFTER THE TRAGIC ATTACKS St. Vincent’s doctor remembers working in Queens ER on 9/11
On a September morning 20 years ago, Dr. Frank Illuzzi was in a radiology suite at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens, N.Y. He was looking at some images when a colleague burst in and told him a plane had just hit the World Trade Center.
“I remember thinking ‘How is that possible?’ ” said Illuzzi, now Hartford HealthCare Medical Group’s medical director for Fairfield County. “It was such a clear day. I remember, it was so clear you could see the towers from the hospital. On such a clear day, how could a plane hit that building?”
Though it’s been decades since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Illuzzi remembers the events of that day clearly. He remembers expecting to help save hundreds of people, then quickly real
izing how few survivors there were for him to help. He remembers the smell of smoke hanging in the air for days after the attacks.
And he remembers the commitment and bravery of the doctors and nurses he worked with, and of everyone else he came into contact with at that difficult time.
“It was a tremendous feeling of unity afterward,” Illuzzi said. “We really bonded and came together as people.”
On Sept. 11, 2001 Illuzzi, who now works out of St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Bridgeport, was a chief resident in the emergency medical program at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center. Even before he and his colleagues were fully aware that the plane was part of a terrorist attack that would leave thousands dead, they were shifting into crisis mode.
“Immediately, you click into it and think ‘We have to start our disaster call and set up our incident command,’ ” Illuzzi said.
He said the hospital quickly began making space in emergency rooms and operating rooms, and shifting staff around to receive what they were initially told could be as many as 500 casualties. Then, in the middle of these preparations, a second plane hit the towers, and Illuzzi and his colleagues were told to expect as many as a thousand patients.
“My heart sank,” Illuzzi said. But he was heartened by how quickly those around him responded to the crisis. “Within 20 or 30 minutes, spontaneously, about 100 doctors and nurses descended on the emergency department and said ‘How can we help?’ It really was amazing the response that we got.”
As time passed, the medical center didn’t receive the stream of casualties the staff was expecting. At first, Illuzzi said, some of the medical center staff decided to travel out to the site of the attacks, in case assistance was needed at the scene. He was told to stay behind and manage the response at the hospital.
However, Illuzzi said, it quickly became clear that the emergency doctors weren’t needed to help save people, because there weren’t that many survivors. Only a few dozen people trickled into the medical center, many covered in white dust, bearing minor injuries. Illuzzi recalled a pregnant woman who walked to the hospital to make sure that she and her baby were healthy.
Though staff eagerly helped everyone who came in, “it wasn’t the 500 to 1,000 people we were hoping to save,” he said. “It was a trickle. By evening, that trickle had stopped. It was a deflating feeling, knowing that we weren’t going to be able to save more people.”
Still, Illuzzi said, he worked until midnight, doing whatever needed to be done. Then he headed home, but the events of that day stuck with him. Eventually, he learned the toll of the attacks, and how deeply he and everyone he knew had been affected.
“We had family members who worked in the buildings, or around the buildings,” he said. “We had childhood friends. We all were somehow connected to those buildings. There was a tremendous amount of loss.”
Illuzzi went on to finish his residency, and left the hospital in July 2002. He took a job as an emergency room doctor at St. Vincent’s, but, even as his life moved forward, the events of that day 20 years ago are forever present in his heart and mind.
One thing that has stuck with him is the way that people came together, not just in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, but in the days that followed.
“We were so unified,” Illuzzi said. “It didn’t matter what walk of life you came from. They say worst of humanity brings out best in humanity, and (9/11) was a prime example of that.”