A Warren County doctor who responded to Ground Zero 20 years ago said the efforts to find survivors among the wreckage of the World Trade Center have helped shape his career in emergency rooms ever since.
On September 11, 2001, Dr. Randy Mariott got the call to make the trip to New York City as part of Ohio Task Force 1.
“We thought that we were heading there with significant potential of being able to rescue live victims,” he said. “That was our hope.”
For the medical director of Premier Health EMS Center of Excellence, that hope never materialized. When they got to New York City on Sept. 12, there were no survivors to find. The team instead focused on recovering remains, and Marriott attended to the health and safety of other first responders.
“That was the most difficult part,” he said. “The realization that nearly 3,000 of our fellow citizens, not to mention over 400 first responders, were still in that pile and we probably could do nothing to help them.”
His time at Ground Zero has often influenced his work as an emergency department doctor at Premier Health’s different hospitals across the area, he said.
“I think that just the preparation has played a role in my career,” Marriott said. “I’ve tried to focus on doing more with less.”
In addition to having the experience influence his career, he also said the terrorist attacks may have helped make a doctor out of his son.
“I picked him up at his middle school on the way to the hospital to get medical gear that we had to take with us,” Marriott said. “He actually helped me carry out the medical supplies that went to Ground Zero.”
