New Study Shows Healing Effect Of Donating Objects To 9/11 Museum

Before tubes were put down my throat to help me breathe, I was put in an ambulance. An emergency responder found me barefoot and terrified just blocks from Ground Zero. I was on the corner of West and Vesey when the second tower collapsed and had run out of my favorite pair of slip-on shoes escaping the downpour of debris, abandoning them somewhere a few blocks away. The bottoms of my feet were bleeding, lacerated from sprinting across pavement strewn with broken glass. The crisis worker (was my lifeline a he or a she? In the mind-blanking terror of that morning I still don't recall) thrust a triage tag around my neck. Scrawled in black ink and shorthand, the rectangular piece of paper lists my medical conditions: "diff breathing," "inhalation," "abd pain." My triage tag is just one of 11,000 artifacts in the official collection of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. A decade after the attacks I donated it, along with my press pass working as an investigative producer for WNBC-TV. And while seeing the triage tag on display and reading the accompanying description likely makes some visitors wonder whatever happened to me, I wish there were a button next to the plexiglass case that played an audio recording of how I feel 15 years later. "I'm so happy," the voice would proclaim again and again. "Some days are harder than others, but mostly I'm at peace." I've come to learn this sense of healing is the experience of many individuals who've donated belongings to the ...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news