On 9-11 NYU Downtown treated 1,500 patients

To download materials presented at the symposium, please scroll to the bottom of this page.

On Thursday, September 9, NYU Downtown Hospital hosted a seminar designed to familiarize healthcare and corporate professionals with the topics of readiness and first response to large-scale emergencies. Entitled "Emergency Preparedness: Safeguarding the Public in a New Era," the seminar featured speakers from hospitals in New York, Madrid, and Jerusalem sharing the expertise they have developed responding to terrorist attacks, as well as a key note address by New York State Senator Michael Balboni, chair of the State Senate Committee for Veteran Homeland Security and Military Affairs.

The unfortunate but undeniable truth is that Lower Manhattan is no stranger to terrorism. In fact, the downtown area was the site of acts of terror long before those on the World Trade Center in either 1993 or 2001. On September 16, 1920, there was a tremendous explosion outside the J.P. Morgan Building at Wall and Broad streets. The attackers, believed by historians today to have been anarchists, drove a horse-drawn cart covered with tarpaulin holding 1,000 pounds of explosions to the edge of the building. The blast killed more than 40 people and injured hundreds more.

On September 9, NYU Downtown Hospital will host "Emergency Preparedness: Safeguarding the Public in a New Era"

The events of 9/11 reminded us how critical the hospital is. In the minutes, hours, and days after the 2001 attack, the hospital -- the only hospital south of Houston Street -- treated 1,500 patients, including 269 firefighters, police, and rescue workers. More than 350 patients flooded into the hospital in the first two hours alone. "We certainly hope that nothing like that ever happens here again," Logan says, "but we have to be prepared if it does."

In an effort to improve emergency preparedness systems within the hospital following the events of 9/11, officials at NYU Downtown traveled to Israel, where victims of terrorism are regularly sent to Shaare Zedek Medical Center. The lessons they learned at Shaare Zedek were invaluable, Logan remembers. "We thought this information needed to be shared with the public."

As a result, the hospital last year decided to commemorate the 9/11 anniversary in a special way -- by sharing with a wider audience of hospital and corporate professionals the expertise they have developed to help protect and prepare the downtown community should any other such attack occur.

NYU Downtown Hospital on William Street is the only hospital south of Houston

This year's all-day seminar addressed topics of general preparedness; response to biological, chemical, and radiological attacks; and the Incident Command System, a system used nationally to train employees on exactly what procedures to follow in the event of an emergency. Speakers at the symposium also reviewed strategies that agencies and corporations can use to safely and more effectively manage emergency situations, as well as ways in which public officials and private citizens can contribute to the protection of their communities. In addition, this year's panel of speakers included emergency room directors from the Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón in Madrid, which helped treat victims of the terrorist attack there in March.

Like last year, representatives from Israel's Shaare Zedek again shared their expertise in responding to mass-casualty emergencies. "It's all the same," says Paul Glasser, national director of the American Committee for Shaare Zedek. "When there's a bomb, whether it is in Madrid or in Jerusalem or in New York, you need a well-oiled-machine kind of response to terror, and the way in which an institution prepares itself to respond to an attack is critical. This expertise is definitely transferable."

NYU Downtown is currently undergoing a large renovation which will create a new 28,000-square-foot emergency room

Applebaum and his daughter, Nava, were killed in a terrorist attack at a Jerusalem café the night before Nava's wedding. "There was a special bond created between all of us that day," says Shaare Zedek's Glasser. "We are now connected."

Applebaum and his tireless commitment to ever improving the ability of his own and other hospitals to respond to acts of terror were remembered at Thursday's symposium. NYU Downtown Hospital will also award the doctor posthumously for his contributions at its annual gala later this fall.