Ground zero responders recount their haunting 9/11 experiences | 60 Minutes Archive
In a Nutshell
Dr. Benjamin Luft launched the World Trade Center Oral History Project to preserve the raw, personal stories of 9/11 responders, rejecting their reduction to mere medical cases. These accounts reveal the toxic exposure that left nearly a third with asthma, 42% with sinusitis, and many with chronic diseases, alongside the persistent post-traumatic stress that responders carry as "luggage" for life. The interviews, now a book and documentary, stand as a permanent record of the responders' sacrifices, their enduring health struggles, and the therapeutic value of telling their stories.
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On September 11, Dr. Benjamin Luft prepared Stony Brook University Medical Center on Long Island for the massive number of casualties he expected to overwhelm the emergency room, but none came through the door that day. So few had survived. Dr. Luft's casualties were coming, but they would arrive much later. Although nearly 3,000 people were killed at the World Trade Center, 70,000 others responded to ground zero and worked for months amid toxic smoke and dust. Dr. Luft helped start a clinic to treat the chronic illnesses and psychological trauma suffered by the 9/11 responders.
Over time, Dr. Luft discovered something that he never expected. He began to hear their stories, honest, raw, irreplaceable stories. And almost two years ago, he began to record the definitive history of ground zero, remembering 9/11 in the words of the people who lived it.
The problem that came up was that our society began to look at the responders in terms of their disease. They became an issue in terms of their liability. And my feeling was that that's not who the responders were. Let's find out who they are as human beings, what their motivation was, what values they had, what sacrifices they made, how they were able to renew themselves. It was almost like taking a civics class as to what is important about being a citizen. What is important about being a human being? What is important to being an American?
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