[pgiaco]

Was finishing up an on-call night at Nyack Hospital and getting ready to head home to rest, clean up and get ready to go to the Yankee-White Sox game that night. A bunch of people were gathered around a TV watching a report of a small plane crashing into WTC. Thought it was weird since it was such a clear day...One of my buddies joked that it wouldn't be so weird if the pilot was wearing a turban. Then we watched the second plane hit and it wasn't a joke anymore. Later in the day they announced they were setting up a triage area at Chelsea Piers on the west side of Manhattan. A couple of the guys in my practice got together and decided to head down to see if we could help. It was the eeriest feeling I've ever had driving down the Palisades Parkway without another car in sight. We were the only car going over the George Washington and got stopped by an NYPD checkpoint entering Manhattan at the West Side Highway and only got through when we showed our hospital IDs. Driving down we could still see the smoke plume from WTC and we could smell the burning which was a combination of burning rubber, and an electrical fire. The pier was a great set up of makeshift ER and Trauma center, but the saddest thing is we never saw a single person from the towers. We treated a couple of firemen for smoke inhalation, that's it. We headed home around 6 the next morning with the burning pile behind us.