Educational Media Reviews Online

The NYU Downtown Hospital was located four blocks from the World Trade Center and became a place of refuge for hundreds on September 11, 2001. This relatively short production uses brief reflections from hospital staff, physicians, and patients and their families to tell what happened on that fateful day. The story focuses on the efforts to save two people wounded in the attacks: Deborah Mardenfeld and David Bernard. Ms. Mardenfeld was wounded by debris from the second plane to hit the towers. She survived and was released in December 2002. Mr. Bernard battled heroically, but succumbed to his wounds after three months. The families of both of these individuals were, indeed are, amazingly devoted and the recollections of Mr. Bernard of by his family are moving. The many challenges faced by the hospital staff were horrific trauma injuries, the dust cloud that enveloped the hospital after the collapse of the towers, a power outage, and feeding not only patients and staff but those who took refuge in the hospital and people in the neighborhood.

The sound and picture are, overall, of very good quality. There are some gruesome images of wounds and very blunt descriptions of the scenes that the hospital staff witnessed. Still, this work is a wonderful portrayal of a group of people who rose to the occasion and are to be commended for the heroic work they performed in those horrible days.