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HFMA board member survives attack - HFMA News - Deborah White, Healthcare Financial Management Association details account of getting out of World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 - Brief Article

Healthcare Financial Management, Nov, 2001

"I can only rejoice in the fact that I was given the gift of my life," said Deborah White, MD, MBA, CHFP, who walked from the 24th floor of tower 1 of the World Trade Center moments after she felt the impact of a plane hitting the tower's upper floors on September 11. White is senior medical director of quality for Empire Blue Cross/Blue Shield which was located between the 17th and the 31st floors of One World Trade Center. She is also a member of HFMA's National Board of Directors.

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White was leading an early-morning credentialing committee meeting in a 24th floor conference room when she heard "a huge boom that sounded like something heavy had dropped on the floor above us." White said she flinched, expecting the ceiling to cave in, then opened the conference room door to investigate the noise. Looking across the hallway and into another conference room, she saw debris falling past the windows.

The meeting participants were linked by videoconference to the Albany, New York, and Staten Island, New York, Empire Blue Cross/Blue Shield offices. "I let them know that we had to evacuate," said White.

"Nobody had any idea what was going on."

White and her group walked down to the 13th floor, where they were directed out of the stairwell. While on the 13th floor, they were given wet paper towels to use as face masks. "It was such a spontaneously cooperative effort," White said. While on the 13th floor, White spent a few moments making certain that her coworkers were safe.

"We then were directed down a different stairwell, to the ground level," White related. "When we came out on the ground level, I thought we were in the basement because it was so dark, and the walls were damaged badly. I didn't realize we were in the lobby until I saw the nameplate for our company near the elevators. The slabs of marble that had been decorating the walls were in chunks on the floor.

"When we were coming down from the 13th floor, we saw firemen trudging up the steps," said White. "They had all their rescue equipment and oxygen tanks, and they were just drenched in sweat. Everyone was anxious about getting out, and these guys were dutifully trudging up those steps--into who knows what.

"We came out near building 5," she continued. "People told us to keep going and not look back, but everybody looked back! We looked up and saw flames coming out high on the building. Somebody said something about a plane hitting the building, but I didn't believe it. I thought, these buildings are not tall enough to be in anybody's flight path. Maybe a commuter plane had some kind of accident, but it could not have been a clearer day."

White's group and others fleeing the World Trade Center gathered at South Street Seaport, a historic district 10 blocks east of the World Trade Center. White related, "A group of people standing south of us suddenly started running toward us, like they were running for their lives. We started moving along with them, but we wanted to know what we were trying to get away from! I know now that they were watching the towers, and had seen tower 2 come down. They were running to escape a big ball of dust and ash that was coming toward them. Needless to say, we didn't escape that ash and dust, but it was significantly dissipated by the time it reached us."

White's group had brought extra wet paper towels from the 13th floor and used them to cover their noses and mouths when the ash came toward them. Continuing north, they came across a man in a car who had his radio turned up. "That's when we heard about the Pentagon," White said. "At first I couldn't believe it--did he say 'Pentagon'? Then I said, well, this is just like Pearl Harbor. We're now in a war zone."

White said she never felt panic during the journey from the building and was able to help calm a coworker by repeating the 23rd Psalm. While walking, she and her coworkers prayed for the firemen they had seen coming up the stairs. She also worried about members of her staff who were on the 23rd floor of the Empire offices, wondering whether some had been in the elevators on their way to work when the plane hit the building. "I was desperately hoping I would see their faces," she said. White later found out that the vast majority of Empire's nearly 2000 employees located at the World Trade Center escaped the building without harm. At press time, nine Empire staff members were not yet accounted for, and three employees were hospitalized in stable condition.

White and three coworkers continued on to Beth Israel Hospital because a sister of one of the group worked there. While at Beth Israel, one of White's coworkers began having chest pains. She was immediately taken to the hospital's cardiac unit, where physicians did tests and determined that the pains were stress-related and not due to a heart attack.

At White's request, Beth Israel social workers called the Empire staff in Albany who had been part of the credentialing committee meeting via videoconference. "They were much relieved," said White. "They didn't know if we were alive or dead. We had left them looking at an empty room."

Health Care Industry

HFMA board member survives attack - HFMA News - Deborah White, Healthcare Financial Management Association details account of getting out of World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 - Brief Article

Healthcare Financial Management, Nov, 2001

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