"A Dark You've Never Seen"

Buried Alive At World Trade Center, A Rescuer Struggles With Poor Health

(CBS)  By CBSNews.com's Stephen Smith

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Bonnie Giebfried desperately gasped for breath on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

The emergency medical technician and two dozen others had just been buried alive in the 1 World Financial Center building at the World Trade Center.

A fireball had sucked a mountain of smoldering debris on top of them. Entombed in rubble, they were unable to break the window panes that led to oxygen outside.

"There was no way out. It got very quiet. You could hear everybody breathing and the breaths got less and less," Giebfried recalls. "At that point, I heard my heart beat and I just closed my eyes and resigned myself that I was gonna die right there."

Moments later, Giebfried heard a pop, pop, pop. One of the trapped police officers had managed to get to his service revolver and shoot out the window of the alcove.

The group broke through two thick panes of glass and escaped. Giebfried and the others had ingested a toxic mixture of pulverized metal, asbestos and unimaginable debris. She and her partner, Jennifer Beckham, emerged into a black abyss. "A dark you've never seen before," she says.

They had no idea the south tower of the World Trade Center had collapsed.

Today, Giebfried, who lives on Long Island with her grandmother, is among tens of thousands of responders and residents who have reported lingering illnesses from exposure to the toxic air at ground zero.

A new health study released Tuesday shows that 7 out of 10 recovery workers who responded to the attacks on the World Trade Center suffered lung problems because of their work there. Yet, many are still not getting the treatment they need.

Five years after being buried alive, Giebfried, 41, still struggles to breathe — and to be heard. She suffers a litany of ailments: asthma, gastrointestinal reflux disease, hiatal hernia, damaged vocal chords, nerve damage, sciatica, post-traumatic stress disorder, and a surgically reconstructed wrist.

"I'm a 41-year-old woman and I feel like I'm 90," she says.

Like many other 9/11 victims, the former Flushing Hospital Medical Center EMT and volunteer firefighter has fought a losing battle with New York City bureaucracy to get treatment for her physical, emotional and mental trauma.

That toll began mounting just moments before being buried alive by the south tower's avalanche of debris. Giebfried and Beckham had helped three women out of the south tower's lobby, carrying one physically disabled woman to safety on a stretcher.

Debris and paper swirled in the streets; cars and trees were on fire; human limbs were strewn on the ground. She could hear bodies explode like gunshots as they hit the ground.

[reaperdet1]

Radioactive fallout from the '50's nuclear testing, Agent Orange, the first Gulf War, 9/11 suvivors, and, my guess is, the combat troops that come home from the Middle East that are exposed to depleted urainium ammution, should be given proper care without having to go through all the red tape that seems to be prevelent to get the government to take proper action. Our leaders that claim to 'honor' these people dishonor them by doing nothing.

[momtodrdog]

These people are being hushed and pushed under the table just like a lot of the disabled veterans from Vietnam. The government admits Agent Orange causes cancer, but it has to be a certain kind of cancer, yet they're finding new evidence of more kinds of cancer caused by it. Yet they still deny disability claims. Same with these good samaritans who chose to "give" and "help" their fellow man. What's their repay? The government turns their backs on them. All the money that goes to charity overseas and to rebuild enemy countries that we have torn down would go a LONG way in helping these defenseless people. They're down now and not able to "give" so the govt is through with them. That is not a principle that our country was founded on!

[clipedwinga]

Like Bonnie and many other of my Colleagues, our 9/11 Rescue Efforts haa diminished the quality of my life. I received no assistance from the millions collected and wonder where it went because as a single mother of two children it did get to me.

Now, nearing 5 years later, still no help in sight and our exposure during the rescue efforts made us permanently disabled. We need a life line and no one seems to have a rope to throw us. While protocols to deal with our multiple illnesses are helpful, what we need is a system that doesnt cover us with a mound of paperwork to give us an opportunity to be denied for further benefits.
It is obvious to me that the people rendering the decision in my Workers Compensation Case dont read my medical documentation (possibly because its too much paper work) but they also dont read the newspaper or watch TV. We are the stories they switch channels on. The one's considered, not of vital importance until the next time rescue workers are needed to Answer the Call! For me 9/11 was my last call and the start of my spiral decent into the black hole I now exist in.
Regina "Reggie" Cervantes
WTC Survivor Rescue Worker
[e-mail]

[mariegibson-2009]

Where in heaven's name did all the millions of dollars given by the American people and people from all over the world go that was intended for victims of this disaster? Our government is letting down those who suffered at the World Trade Center just like it's letting down those who suffer from the disaster of Hurricane Katrina. We can spend billions on other countries and other's wars... but our own people suffer daily. This is heart sickening.

[edjohn66]

Let us not forget that while Ms. Giebfried was subjected to toxins as the direct aftermath of the attack, countless more were carelessly subjected to airborne toxins in the days and weeks after the attacks. Christiing Todd Whitman recklessly gave the "all clear" for air quality at the site, and now hundreds of people suffer because of her carelessness. Shame on her, shame on the Bush administration for pressuring her to give her statement, and shame on both NYC and the federal government for ignoring the resulting problems of the clean-up! Those people are all heroes, and they have been forsaken by their governments.

[kdjones44]

I think it is a terribly sad situation and shows alot about us a people and a country. We will shell out millions of dollars to the families of those that died but we won't take care of the ones that are still alive and suffering for putting their lives on the line. It's been real easy for people to speak out for 5 years about all the "Unsung Heroes" of 9/11 and here are alot of those heroes who need our help and are not getting it. Where is the "fund" for them?!?