Where were you on 9/11?

I think that most of us probably remember where we were when we heard about the planes crashing in NYC. For me, it was the first time in my life that I didn't feel safe in our country. I felt so vulnerable all of the sudden, even though the events were occuring thousands of miles away. I'll never forget my experience.

I was actually at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center doing my Nursing clinicals. I was in Pre-op with a patient who was getting a total knee replacement. I was to admit her, go into surgery with her, take her to post-op, and then up to the Orthopedic floor. This was an ALL day thing. After my patient was ready to go surgery, I was just walking up and down the halls waiting for them to call us. Suddenly a woman in one of the pre-op rooms starts yelling, "Oh no! oh my gosh, oh my gosh!" I walked over and an orderly comes out of her room, they were watching a television. He told me a plane had just crashed into the Sears tower (not exactly right, but anyway...) At this point it was very sad, but more of a fluke thing, nothing too suspicious. My patient was called and as we were wheeling through the OR doors someone yells "Another plane just crashed into the twin towers!" Now I'm a little concerned but can't really find out much more because I'm going into surgery. As the surgery progresses all of us in the OR are buzzing about what is going on. Unfortunately they banned tv's from the OR so we couldn't get any updates. Then, a resident Anesthesiologist tells us he has internet on his pager (or something like that?) So he starts getting us updates. The second he told us that a plane had crashed into the Pentagon I knew things weren't good. All I wanted to do was call Spencer or my Mom. Just talk to a family member. I felt so helpless sitting in that room not knowing why this was happening or how far it would go. The surgery was pretty long about 4 hours, by the time I had taken my patient to the floor it was four'o'clock. We sat there and watched the television play the crashes over and over. It was really terrifying and surreal. I guess I felt like as Americans we were untouchable. We fought battles all the time in the world, but not here, not on our soil. It was really scary, especially realizing that these people have no respect for human life. They feel that taking there lives to kill their enemy is an honorable death. How can you fight that kind of mentality? I just want to remember all the families that lost loved ones that day, and who still are losing loved ones. I am so grateful for our soldiers and their bravery I can't even imagine doing what they do. We're so lucky to have them. Please remember them in your prayers.