Healing 9/11 Wounds, Virtually

This story was written by CBSNews.com's Christine Lagorio

When the sounds turned to splintering steel and crashing debris, King thought the tower was coming down on top of him. He bolted outside, only to be nearly buried alive by the skyscraper he was trying to empty.

"I was in the street when the tower was coming down, and I absolutely thought it was going to crush me. I dived into a train station, where debris tumbled down on top of me," King said.

He doesn't know how long he was buried, but once people dug him out "they thought I was having a heart attack I was having such trouble breathing."

He lost dozens of friends and comrades that day, as well as his 30-year career.

A painful knee injury was the least of King's problems. Nightmares haunted his sleep and his memories were so painful that King avoided lower Manhattan altogether. Even the Brooklyn Bridge, which he crossed to respond to the first plane crash, was psychologically off-limits.

Eighteen months of therapy didn't help. But one small tool – a virtual reality program his psychologist designed – has healed mental wounds King said he thought were permanent.

Dr. JoAnn Difede, the director of Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Studies Program at Weill Cornell Medical College, said she saw her 9/11-survivor patients with post-traumatic stress disorder being consistently unable to confront their fear, even years after the attacks.

Because she had seen colleagues use virtual reality simulations to treat post-traumatic stress disorder in a range of patients – from Vietnam War veterans to those with a fear of spiders – she thought to apply virtual reality to 9/11.

For Difede, programmers designed a sensory simulation of the World Trade Center terrorist attack. The dust, the cries, the flames and the caving towers are all virtual images projected in two eyepieces connected to a lightweight black helmet.

Other senses were added, as well as motion, so the helmet's wearer can look up to see the flaming tops of the towers or down to see ambulances and rubble. He or she simultaneously hears distant screams and feels the ground shake.

"That way, someone who hasn't wanted to engage – who didn't want to go back to the World Trade Center – can do so in a very safe and controlled fashion," Difede said. "They can go out of the world if it becomes too distressing. They can then start processing their memories."

King, 57, said the digital return to Ground Zero flooded him with images and sensations he had blocked out.

"It could get so emotional putting it on," King said. "Ten or 15 minutes into the session, I was sweating, I was shaking, and so much was coming back to me."

The helmet adjusts visual images to its wearer's motion by reacting to an electromagnetic sensor in a corner of Difede's office. Although this helmet – worth almost $20,000 – can be used for many virtual reality programs (including flight simulations for those afraid of flying and a virtual audience for those traumatized by public speaking) the World Trade Center program is the only of its kind.

And King said it's the only thing that helped him return to Ground Zero.

"I've been through thinking, 'I'm never gonna get better,' but the virtual reality made a difference. I couldn't get by, I couldn't sleep," King said. "But now I've been long off the medication."

In one preliminary test, Difede and her research partner, Hunter G. Hoffman, Ph.D., director of the virtual reality research center at the University of Washington, reported that gradual exposure to a virtual World Trade Center attack reduced post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms by 90 percent. It cut standard depression symptoms by 83 percent.

King – like many others who scoff at the idea of a digital flaming office tower – has become a believer.

"It reminded me of a PlayStation game or something. And the first time I put the headset on and saw the animation, I thought, this must be a joke," King recalled.

The virtual world has helped King return to the real Manhattan. The Long Island resident now sees plays at Lincoln Center.

"The reality is, it's amazing," King said.

[The virtual reality work at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center is supported by Pfizer, Inc., Dell Computers, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the Paul Allen Foundation donation to Harborview Burn Center in Seattle.]

By Christine Lagorio