Saving a life and a bride
Patty
ER doctors treat a World Trade Center victim against the odds
By Edie Magnus
NBC NEWS
Sept. 16 — Amid the avalanche of bleak news from ground zero at the World Trade
Center, there are some scattered bright spots, moments of light punctuating the
days of darkness. Dateline’s Edie Magnus reports.
IT WAS an island of hope in a sea of chaos. NYU downtown medical center, the
hospital closest to the World Trade Center, was keeping order amid the madness.
“This is in every way comparable to what you see in a war on a battlefield,”
says Dr. Howard Beaton, chief of surgery and emergency services.
That first night a “Dateline” producer followed Dr. Beaton as he went from bed
to bed in the Intensive Care Unit. It is where life hangs in the balance.
“This is where we stabilize people,” says Dr. Beaton.
One of the first victims brought in minutes after the attack was a young woman
who appeared to be in her late 20s. “This woman was identified originally as
Jane Doe #1 — she was injured when the first plane struck,” says Dr. Beaton.
In the emergency room, Dr. Jerry Ginsburg, a plastic surgeon, found Jane Doe #1
hanging to life by a thread.
“We put intravenous fluids into her, and essentially took this lady who was
absolutely bleeding to death, stabilized her so that I could bring her to the OR
[operating room],” says Dr. Ginsburg. “Her legs were almost cut off, almost
completely cut off.”
They were cut off apparently by debris falling to the street.
“We’ve been told that what hit her was the landing gear of the plane,” says Dr.
Beaton. “If it had been a few inches forward it would have hit her in the head
and she would have never made it here.”
The trauma team operating on Jane Doe had few options and even less time. Her
legs, they concluded, should be amputated — and fast.
“One of our superb surgeons came in — well trained in trauma — and he looked at
the four of us in the team and said, in his Australian accent, ‘for God sakes,
cut them off, we’ve got to get going,’” says Dr. Ginsburg. “And that was
actually superb trauma training. You don’t waste time on things that are
non-reconstructable, you save the blood, you get the job done.”
But one surgical team member, a foot specialist, begged for more time before
going through with the amputation.
“And Dr. Botwinick said, ‘I’m going to go a little bit slowly, I think I can
save these feet,’” says Dr. Ginsburg.
Surgeons worked for hours, slowly and meticulously reconstructing her lower
torso, her legs and feet.
“As I’m operating on her and I’m looking at her,” says Dr. Ginsburg, “I said
it’s not Jane Doe #1, it’s somebody with long, dark, gorgeous hair, probably
late 20s or 30, and I said to myself ‘What is she going to do with these feet?’
Here I’m reconstructing this woman and I’m dying to know who is Jane Doe #1?”
Remarkably they were able to save her feet and legs. But when she came out of
surgery, the team still had no idea who this woman was.
About eight hours later, despite the tube down her throat, she whispered her
name and phone number.
“When I got her name and phone number and I spoke to her fiancé who answered the
phone,” says Dr. Ginsburg, “I heard the word ‘fiancé,’ I said to myself, she’s
going to dance at her wedding on her own feet, and not on prosthesis.”
At home on New York’s Upper West Side, Greg St. John had been frantic for hours,
unable to find the woman he was to marry a year from this month. Then his phone
rang.
“I waited about eight hours through the day until the surgeons called me and
they asked if I would know a Jane Doe #1, they think it’s a Debbie,” says St.
John.
He says it was the best phone call of his life.
It turns out, Jane Doe #1 is 30-year-old Debbie Mardenfeld from Manhattan, four
days after nearly losing her life. Debbie was finally able to breathe on her
own, to talk — although her voice was just a whisper.
She said she was getting married “next September. I have an amazing fiancé. He
is one of those few special people in life that I know I found a truly unique
and vibrant person.”
Debbie told “Dateline” that on Tuesday she had gone early to work at the
American Express office in the World Trade Center.
“What I remember is walking out of the subway into the street and seeing the top
of one of the buildings on fire and I said that can’t be true,” says Mardenfeld.
“And I then I saw the other tower explode and I knew I had to run for my life,
and that’s all I remember.”
Debbie’s recovery will be long and slow, but she’s off to a start that’s nothing
short of amazing, thanks to the helping hands of strangers who have now become
lifelong friends.
“I can say I am so thrilled and so impressed with the people who have spent time
with me,” says Mardenfeld. “They have changed my life all for the better and I
love them. I don’t want to lose touch with you, you didn’t have to go to this
extent.”
“She’s in ICU a day after this amazing trauma,” says Dr. Ginsburg. “She’s had 30
units of blood. She has a tube between her vocal chords and can’t speak. [She’d
had this] devastating injury and the fact that we’ve changed the shape of her
backside and she was desperate to get a tablet and writes to me, ‘So doc, my
butt’s smaller?’ And I said, ‘My kind of woman.’”
“It was unbelievable to have her open her eyes and smile at me,” says a nurse
who helped care for Mardenfeld. “As soon as she opened her eyes, she wouldn’t
let go of me and we both started crying. She’s going to live and we’re going to
her wedding.”
DedNdogYrs
lost both of her legs. It's wonderful though that this one doctor spent all the
extra time saving them.
Dogs & children first.