September 13, 2002

"It's hard to believe it has been a year. It seems like it happened just yesterday."
Marie LeBlanc, RN

Murals honor heroes, MGH disaster relief teams

"For many people, Sept. 11 has been on their minds lately because of the one-year anniversary," says Marie LeBlanc, RN, of Ellison 7.

"But for our teams, it has never left us." LeBlanc is referring to her MGH colleagues who also were members of the Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT) and the International Medical Surgical Response Team (IMSuRT) who were deployed Sept. 11 last year to provide emergency medical care at Ground Zero in New York City.

To commemorate the extraordinary efforts of the teams, MGH team members and staff from the MGH Photography Lab prepared several murals (at right) that will be displayed on patient care units where many of the team members work. Funded by a Making a Difference grant given to the Photo Lab, the murals show photographs of individual members and group shots mounted on an American flag background.

"When we were brainstorming ideas of how to recognize the anniversary, we didn't want to focus on the tragedy itself," says LeBlanc. "Instead we wanted to recognize the team members and honor their hard work and dedication." The murals were the brainchild of Mike Spiro, RN, and Mary Houghton, RN.

The morning of Sept. 11 last year will forever be etched in the minds of the team members. Each person was notified about the deployment by Susan Briggs, MD, an MGH surgeon and supervising medical officer of the Federal Disaster Teams.

IMSuRT was developed by Briggs to serve as a specialty trauma DMAT of the National Disaster Medical System. The team is part of the congressionally mandated disaster system for the United States. The function of the teams is to deploy rapidly a group of surgical, medical, nursing and other health care professionals - many of them MGH clinicians - from throughout New England in the event of a catastrophic event in the United States or abroad.

Once they arrived at Ground Zero, the teams worked around the clock to provide medical care for a steady stream of injured rescue workers and volunteers. Team members also were deployed to Cornell Medical Center's burn unit, where they assisted in caring for burn victims injured in the tragedy. The teams received a heroes' welcome upon their return to the MGH Sept. 21.

"It's hard to believe it has been a year," says LeBlanc. "It seems like it happened just yesterday."

The team members have been busy this past year. Briggs, LeBlanc and other team members have given lectures and interviews about their experiences at Ground Zero. Most of the team members have participated in six additional emergency-response training sessions to enhance their preparedness for other such disasters.

According to LeBlanc, because IMSuRT is the only international medical response team in the United States, it is serving as a model for the country. Briggs has been asked to start two other teams in the United States. The current team members soon will begin training others in Seattle and Miami.

"There is a lot of pride at the hospital for what these teams accomplished," says LeBlanc. "Each team member performed amazing tasks under extraordinary circumstances. They have a lot to be proud of."