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American Morning

America's New War: Burn Victims Survive, but Scarred by Experience

Aired September 18, 2001 - 10:53   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Joining us right now is Dr. Sanja Gupta, who was dispatched to many of the area's hospitals when we knew the injured were being sent throughout the city.

You have an update now on how some of those patients are doing. Have the majority of those injured been released from the metropolitan hospitals?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: They have. I went to several hospitals here in New York, as you know. Over about 1500 or so patients throughout all the hospitals here in New York is what I've been hearing, and there may be less than 100 that still remain in the hospitals now.

I've had a chance to talk to many survivors over this past week. And luckily a lot of those survivors simply had abrasions, cuts, eye injuries smoke injuries and things like that. But there were other survivors, Paula, survivors that escaped, but at great cost. I had a chance to catch up with some of them at the Weill Cornell Burn Center, which fortuitously, was actually -- is actually located in the city, and is the largest burn center in the country. Some of the stories I heard certainly of their burns were tragic, but the stories I heard of their experiences in the building at the time were, frankly, horrifying.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MANU DHINGRA, BURN VICTIM: All of a sudden as I'm walking in the hallway I hear a door explode and just this big ball of fire just engulfed me. I just froze, I didn't do anything, I just stood there.

It's somebody from the building maintenance. I'm sure they came up and they said we have to evacuate, we have to evacuate. And I'm thinking how am I going to get down, you know, and I just -- all my arms are burnt, my back is burnt, face.

And so one of my friends they're like, Manu, you have to get out, you have to get out. You know there's nobody here, you have to get out. So I just, I don't know how, I just jumped up and just started running down the stairs and people were very nice. They saw that I was burned and they let me go in front of them.

GUPTA (voice-over): That's got to be shocking for you to even see, let alone think about how to treat.

DR. ROGER YURT, WEILL CORNELL BURN CENTER: What was more shocking was seeing so many with big burns at the same time.

LING YOUNG, BURN VICTIM: I was very fortunate I was in the back of the elevator. This -- OK, anybody in front of me either killed, no leg, no face, it was just disgusting.

She said I can't breathe, I've got to get the hell out of here. And they said, no, we've got to wait for one more. She says, if you don't let me get out of here I'm not going to be able to make it. Finally the EMS said, OK, let's go. After we turn around the corner, the whole building collapsed on us.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: What she said there at the end, was that she actually thinks she may have been the last one out of the building. The building literally collapsed behind her.

What I heard were amazing stories of courage by the patients, no question, but also amazing stories of courage by the doctors. These doctors at the hospital told me these burns where among the worst that they've ever seen. The temperatures in that building getting up to 1,000 degrees. Just for a frame of reference, one second of exposure at 155 degrees, almost ten times less, can give you a third degree burn. These were 1,000 degrees, these were fireballs cascading through hallways. Really just almost too horrific to describe.

These patients do have a long road in front of them. They're going to have to have their skin literally peeled away layer by layer, twice a day for up to months. Some of the most painful therapies known in medicine known right now. These doctors, doctors like Dr. Roger Yurt, will be comandeering that process here at Cornell Hospital.

ZAHN: Doctor, thank you very much for that update.

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