Sandals

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Dr. Kerry Kelly was in Staten Island Hospital making rounds with her private patients when she learned that a plane had just hit the World Trade Center.

Dressed in a blue dress and sturdy sandals appropriate for the late-summer weather, Dr. Kelly rushed to her car and proceeded to drive into lower Manhattan. After parking, Kelly purposefully made her way to Ladder 10/Engine 10, the closest firehouse, to borrow a fire helmet and then headed to the nearest FDNY Command post.  

As she neared West Street, Dr. Kelly was flagged down by a member of FDNY Engine 216. One of their men—Daniel Thomas Suhr—required immediate aid after sustaining a severe injury from falling debris. Shortly thereafter, an ambulance arrived. Kelly instructed the paramedics to transport the wounded responder to the nearest hospital specializing in head trauma. A police escort had been arranged. Suhr later died from his injuries.

With the ambulance dispatched, Kelly continued walking toward the World Financial Center just as the South Tower collapsed. She managed to find shelter within an exterior alcove of the building as the dust cloud roared past her. When the avalanche subsided, she regrouped with several FDNY colleagues and continued her search for the department’s emergency command post. Dr. Kelly quickly recognized that her footwear was limiting her ability to navigate through the rubble and darkness. Remembering a pair of sneakers stowed in her car, she set out to find the vehicle, and once located, changed into clean clothes and sports shoes.       

Kelly’s morning as a responding physician continued as she came across more wounded civilians and firefighters. Somewhere in the vicinity of Albany and Washington Streets, she improvised a triage area inside a covered garage. With the North Tower’s collapse at 10:28 a.m., the visibility around Dr. Kelly worsened, so she made her way north. Near City Hall Park, she established a makeshift medical triage center, subsequently relocating it to an interior auditorium at Pace University. Despite resuming efforts to aid the wounded, few opportunities materialized. As evening fell, she refocused on trying to determine who from the FDNY was missing, confirmed dead, or admitted to area hospitals.

In the years following the 2001 terror attacks, Kerry Kelly dedicated herself as a medical professional to tracking the health of firefighters exposed to World Trade Center contaminants on 9/11 and during the 9-month recovery operations—and to diagnosing and better understanding spiking cancers within this population now linked to such toxins.