Posted by Joe Matyas (165.247.13.205) on September 19, 2001 at 12:09:54:
Wednesday, September 19, 2001
'We saw things no human should have to'
By JOE MATYAS, Free Press Reporter
One day they were riding mountain bikes around Western Fair and a day later they were part of a
massive rescue effort at Ground Zero in New York City, where World Trade Center towers had been
turned into rubble by suicide bombers.
It was a strange, rollercoaster week for Paul Harding and Dan Elliott of London, St. John Ambulance
emergency medical technicians who returned home yesterday.
"We saw things no human being should have to see and we coped by doing our job," said Elliott,
looking weary and spent after a week of 20-hour shifts and a long drive back from New York.
"I've never seen anything like it and I doubt if I ever will again," said Harding. "We were in another
world for a week."
It was a world of broken and bleeding people, of body parts, of smoke, dust, grit and dogged
determination by rescue crews who worked non-stop in an effort to save lives.
The two local paramedics were dispatched to New York in an ambulance by Peter Harding,
superintendent of the London St. John brigade and father of Paul, immediately after the towers
toppled .
Harding, a former district chief and deputy chief in the London fire department, sent his son and
Elliott because they're both trained and certified as paramedics in the United States.
The superintendent said his years of emergency service training told him the greatest need for
reinforcements would occur immediately.
"There's a time of chaos that takes about a day to sort out before a command structure is able to bring
order and organization to such a massive undertaking," said Harding.
Elliott and Harding were pulled off duty at Western Fair and sent to New York in a fully equipped
St. John Ambulance vehicle.
They drove non-stop for about 16 hours to the nightmare of Ground Zero.
The smoke and dust was so thick it blocked out the daylight, he said.
The Londoners were fully equipped with respirators, goggles, helmets, steel-toed boots and protective
clothing.
"Our credentials were checked and then we were welcomed and put to work," said Harding.
The Londoners transported patients to hospitals at first, but then began moving medical supplies and
emergency personnel to and from Ground Zero.
Elliott and Harding left New York with memories of confused, dazed and injured people, of the police
bagging and numbering body parts, of acrid smoke that never dissipated and rescue workers who
never quit removing debris from the pile of rubble five storeys tall.
They both wore out two pairs of boots and several pairs of pants and shirts and returned with an
ambulance that needs to be cleaned and disinfected.
"The acid from the cement dust really took its toll," said Harding.
On the bright side, the Londoners, like all emergency and rescue workers, were treated like heroes by
grateful New Yorkers.