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CNN Live Today
Doctor Mark Heath Tries to Help Victims in New York
Aired September 12, 2001 - 13:44 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR: You can imagine the people that are stranded in New York City. Many of them are tourists, and there are stories of doctors and nurses visiting the city who have gone to the area to see if there's anything they can do.
Yesterday morning, when the unthinkable happened, and people were caught in the devastation, tried to get out. Many of those, doctors, nurses, were trying to get in to help. And one of those was Mark Heath, who not only grabbed his bag to try and help people, he also grabbed his camera as he risked his life to try to do something, just try to get to the area. And here now is his own account -- his personal account of that horrible day yesterday.
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DR. MARK HEATH, WITNESS TO WORLD TRADE CENTER ATTACK: They told me just to wait here. Semi-staging area. See if I can help -- that's what I'm doing.
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My name is Mark Heath. I'm a cardiac anesthesiologist at Columbia Presbyterian on 168th Street. We saw the two planes had flown into the World Trade Center and thought that they would need all hands on deck. So I hopped into some scrubs and grabbed some medical stuff and just grabbed -- an ambulance stopped, I hopped in.
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Maybe leave the keys in the car so they can move it if they have to.
Is there a staging area?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're evacuating from the area.
HEATH; Yeah, but they have people who are hurt, right. They've got to pull them out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The estimate is, we've probably lost 400 firefighters. HEATH: Oh, my God.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And God knows how many thousands of people.
HEATH: OK. So you want me to wait right here? OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stay away from any other high-rise buildings.
HEATH: OK. Station up right here, OK. Why don't we set up?
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We were instructed by a fire chief to start setting up a staging area right there. And the second building came down. I videoed what I could, got behind a car.
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I hope I live. I hope I live. It's coming down on me. Here it comes. I'm getting behind a car.
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Everything went black.
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My eyes are open and unless I've been blinded, it's black as night.
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I tried to breathe. I was behind a car. I tried to smash one of the car windows so that I could climb into the car and get some fresh air, but I couldn't break the window, so I sort of went down into the gutter under the car.
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I'm sorry I came down. I just had help people.
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I think I actually said into the microphone, I sort of apologized to my family for going down and trying to help because I really didn't think I was going to get out.
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OK. I'm going to have to go find people who need help, because I don't think I'm one of them. Are you OK, Sir? OK.
Can I just get a toot off your respirator? Could I get a toot?
I'm just getting a couple of clean breathes.
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It was hard to see. Everybody's eyes were full of dust and stinging so it was actually quite hard to see anything.
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OK. Back to you. It is 10:41 AM. I can't do very much because I can't see. My eyes are full of stuff.
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There was initially a complete disarray at all the emergency crews, the firemen, and the policemen.
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Do you have an extra mask?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. I just gave it out. Are you all right though?
HEATH: Yeah. I'm good. See if I can help anybody. They won't let me go any closer. No one can go in to get the people out. There's (INAUDIBLE) still going on. So they have hurt people over there?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, they've got people over there. We've been pulling out. We've done about (INAUDIBLE) already.
HEATH: OK.
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Having seen the buildings come down, I was expecting an enormous number of casualties and it was striking how few injured people there actually were.
I think unfortunately a lot of people who were in the building perished in the building.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nobody moving on the Dell (ph) Parkway of the westbound side up and beyond Pennsylvania Avenue.
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HEATH: It's not a thing that you think about. You just move, kind of get out of the way. That's it. Be thankful that I wasn't in closer. The bravery of the people who went in there was something else.
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