Mayhem - Issue One - March 2014
ISSN 2382-0322
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Melody Wilkinson
I Wasn’t Worried
Tuesday
I am optimistic.
I am not worried. I reach over and grab my husband’s hand before he changes the station on the
truck radio. I hear the words “World Trade Center bombed.” In the twenty minute drive across
Denver to Regis University (where I am studying nursing), we learn it was not a bomb but a
plane and a second one has just hit the other tower. No way, they must have it wrong… first
news reports can be completely misleading. They are saying we are under attack. That seems like
an irresponsible exaggeration. I hate how the media plays on our fears and insecurities to keep us
listening. I get to class. Today is the mid-term exam, worth 50% of the grade. My classmates are
outraged the test is not cancelled and will continue as planned. I think that would be a bit
extreme, as it is all media hype: it is sad, but it was an early morning flight and not too many will
be killed. Besides I studied hard for this exam and I want to get it over with. I keep my eye on
Curt, a Navy man in our class as he will not stop pacing… I’m pretty sure he wants his gun. And
a jeep.
I ace the exam and, back at home, call my sister Marleen. Her tone is serious, which is unlike
her. I keep trying to make jokes to cheer her up but she will not laugh. I am a little worried, but I
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© Copyright remains with the individual author
Mayhem - Issue One - March 2014
ISSN 2382-0322
______________________________________________________________________________
have confidence in those brave heroes, the ones who run toward, not away from danger. I know
that the injured will be transported away and taken care of. I know our military is ready: they
know how to protect us.
I felt I had the right temperament to be a nurse; calm in emergencies, empathetic. In the US,
nurses are an integral part of emergency preparedness plans. The other nurses and I form a
critical link in a strong chain of excellent emergency care. I have heard us referred to as heroes,
but nurses know who the real heroes are: the first responders.
The fire crews, police and ambulance officers are the ones on the front line in a disaster. They
are not volunteers; they are trained experts, the best in their field. Nurses in particular have secret
crushes on first responders. We love our patients and fight for them every day. But there is
something about those first responders; they are real men and women who put their lives on the
line to save others. We understand it. We admire it. We love it. When they come to the unit
because a fire alarm goes off, due to some overworked nurse forgetting her popcorn was in the
microwave, we all suddenly have urgent business at the front desk, quickly pulling our 4am hair
into something slightly presentable on the way to the nurse’s station.
These were the men and women I saw responding to the Twin Towers; if they were there,
everyone would be OK. The injured would be rescued and passed on to nurses like me who knew
exactly what to do, doctors hovering behind, overseeing it all. I know they would have evacuated
the buildings; everyone able-bodied would be on their way home. The system is in place, we all
know what to do. Sure, the media is tossing around numbers like “30,000 people work in the
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
© Copyright remains with the individual author
Mayhem - Issue One - March 2014
ISSN 2382-0322
______________________________________________________________________________
World Trade Center” but the media always exaggerates. The buildings come down. People are
freaking out. I am confident no one was in there: they are American heroes, they know how to
get everyone out, there was enough time. They know exactly what to do, particularly after that
bombing of the WTC in ’93; they would have rehearsed this very scenario.
As the day wears on, my optimism is fading. When news arrives about the Pentagon and then the
Pennsylvania crash, I talk myself through it using a rather valuable little tool called Denial. Very
useful when one wishes to remain upbeat in the face of such dire evidence.
For the first time in a long time that night, I say my prayers.
Wednesday
I turn on the TV in the morning, optimistic that the numbers projected for the injured and dead
will be down significantly. I am concerned for the wellbeing of the New York hospital staff,
knowing they will be ‘pulling doubles’. They must be exhausted. But that’s when I see it, the
news footage of a Manhattan hospital: there are rows of empty wheelchairs and stretchers and
two stationary ambulances. There are two doctors and a nurse standing outside, talking. I
recognize it. It is the picture of readiness for increased volume of patients in a disaster. I had to
learn about it in nursing school. The hospital staff is prepared but they are not running around
ragged, triaging patients on the go, as I expected. They were ready. But no one came.
Now I understand. Now I cry.
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© Copyright remains with the individual author
Mayhem - Issue One - March 2014
ISSN 2382-0322
______________________________________________________________________________
I can’t breathe, and my eyes are blurry. I sink to the couch. The images keep coming: the smoke
cloud, the piles of rubble, the corpse of a fire truck, my heroes covered in dust looking so
…human. And the sound. It is the sound of the fire fighters’ locaters - the signal that a fire
fighter has been lying motionless for too long. The tears come… “… but… but they’re
invincible!”
Tom Brokaw is telling me that hundreds of fire fighters are unaccounted for… hundreds? ...but
they are invincible. He shows pictures of our now-human counterparts helpless to save their
comrades, and the hospital staff with nothing to do… just a normal day at work.
Who did this? What do you mean, the military is scrambling? Our military doesn’t scramble.
The terrorists had been on the planes? How? Why? Nothing makes sense. My optimism is gone.
Thursday
I turn off the TV. I can’t watch another person falling to their death. I can’t watch as helpless
firemen dig with their bare hands, trying to reach their comrades. I go for a walk to clear my
head. But all I see is a sky empty of planes, reminding me that everything has changed. I long to
see the contrails from planes criss-crossing the endless Colorado sky. But they are gone; the
clouds left unaware of the fear we now live in. Monday we were safe. Thursday we are not.
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© Copyright remains with the individual author