responsibilities that was unique to the chief medical officer and the deputy chief medical officer was trying to help out when firefighters and EMS workers who worked for the FDNY were perilously injured. So since the midnineties I have been responding to any life-threatening emergency for firefighters. I could go to all the major-alarm fires, because Iâm a leader and I have a command presence, but thatâs not my interest. I love firefighters, and my mom always told me that my two favorite places to visit as a kid were the Bronx Zoo and the local firehouse. I donât like to just stand around fires, but I do go whenever there is a life-threatening injury or the significant potential for life-threatening injuries, or whenever I think I might be of help in a mass disaster. My job gives me that freedom and responsibility. The toughest moments, but the best ones, for Dr. Kelly and me have always been when a firefighter is fatally or near fatally injured, because we are really able to help that family and that person. Anybody who has seen us do that realizes the immense benefit that we bring to them, to that situation.
Before 9/11 there was a fire chief who had a very serious smoke inhalation event, and he went into respiratory distress. He was intubated at the scene and was taken to a small hospital. I arrived shortly afterward, and the medical care was excellent, but it rapidly became evident to me that their ability to provide the same high-level medical care throughout his hospital admission, especially at nighttime, was not going to be what this patient needed. And therefore I went into the waiting room, and I introduced myself for the first time to his wife. Itâs a situation in which I had not been that patientâs physician, Iâd never met the family, and I was now asking that his wife trust me and my advice that, despite the potential for additional new life-threatening consequences, we should take this patient and move him to a different hospital. As I was trying to explain to her why she should trust someone she had never met, she interrupted me and said, âYou can stop talking now, I know who you are, and weâre going to do whatever you say.â To this day, that is the greatest moment of my life, because it just sums up everything. It sums up the sense of a career in which youâre trying to do nothing but help people. Luckily God was watching over me then, and the chief had a great outcome, and is now living a completely normal life.
Our life or our job is made more joyful or sweet because itâs not without risks. You can only achieve positive things if you are true to your basic vision and philosophy. But that is not without risks. It was a risky thing to do to take that patient out of a protective environment; he was intubated and in critical condition. If he passed away in that environment, it would have had no consequence to me or the Fire Department, except that we would have lost a soul. If he passed away during transport, it would have had damning consequences to me and to the departmentâs Bureau of Health Services, because he would have passed away under our responsibility. These are very tough experiences to live through, but you become stronger because of them. And they just magnify your life.
On the morning of 9/11 I was doing what I do, and Dr. Kelly and everyone else were doing exactly as alwaysâwhich was to be aware of the departmentâs health needs. We immediately saw this is a huge event, with the potential for mass casualties that we might be able to triage or treat. It would be incredibly likely that there would be near fatal or fatal firefighter or EMT [emergency medical technician] events that we would interact with, as liaison or whatever. I cannot tell you that I looked at the towers and said, Oh, 343 firefighters and nearly 3,000 people were going to die that day. In fact, it didnât occur to me at all, and interestingly, it
Before 9/11 there was a fire chief who had a very serious smoke inhalation event, and he went into respiratory distress. He was intubated at the scene and was taken to a small hospital. I arrived shortly afterward, and the medical care was excellent, but it rapidly became evident to me that their ability to provide the same high-level medical care throughout his hospital admission, especially at nighttime, was not going to be what this patient needed. And therefore I went into the waiting room, and I introduced myself for the first time to his wife. Itâs a situation in which I had not been that patientâs physician, Iâd never met the family, and I was now asking that his wife trust me and my advice that, despite the potential for additional new life-threatening consequences, we should take this patient and move him to a different hospital. As I was trying to explain to her why she should trust someone she had never met, she interrupted me and said, âYou can stop talking now, I know who you are, and weâre going to do whatever you say.â To this day, that is the greatest moment of my life, because it just sums up everything. It sums up the sense of a career in which youâre trying to do nothing but help people. Luckily God was watching over me then, and the chief had a great outcome, and is now living a completely normal life.
Our life or our job is made more joyful or sweet because itâs not without risks. You can only achieve positive things if you are true to your basic vision and philosophy. But that is not without risks. It was a risky thing to do to take that patient out of a protective environment; he was intubated and in critical condition. If he passed away in that environment, it would have had no consequence to me or the Fire Department, except that we would have lost a soul. If he passed away during transport, it would have had damning consequences to me and to the departmentâs Bureau of Health Services, because he would have passed away under our responsibility. These are very tough experiences to live through, but you become stronger because of them. And they just magnify your life.
On the morning of 9/11 I was doing what I do, and Dr. Kelly and everyone else were doing exactly as alwaysâwhich was to be aware of the departmentâs health needs. We immediately saw this is a huge event, with the potential for mass casualties that we might be able to triage or treat. It would be incredibly likely that there would be near fatal or fatal firefighter or EMT [emergency medical technician] events that we would interact with, as liaison or whatever. I cannot tell you that I looked at the towers and said, Oh, 343 firefighters and nearly 3,000 people were going to die that day. In fact, it didnât occur to me at all, and interestingly, it
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