Twenty years later, the horrifying events of 9/11 are etched in David Bates’ memory.
贝茨(本科/ R.Ph。 ’93) recently thumbed through a large scrapbook on a desk at his home in Gallup, New Mexico. 当这位威尼斯人娱乐城药学院的校友回忆起他在重建初期担任世贸中心紧急反应小组首席药剂师时，他停下脚步，拿出一张纸。
“Look at this,” Bates said. “I still have a copy of my deployment orders.”
当时，贝茨是亚利桑那州Tsaile市美国公共卫生服务处的一名成员，当恐怖分子袭击纽约市的消息传出时，他正在威尼斯人娱乐城进行招募工作。
“By the time I got to campus, things were getting strange,” he said.
贝茨终于通过电话与应急指挥部的上级取得了联系，他被告知立即返回亚利桑那州的家中，等待进一步的命令。 一周后，当美国的停飞航班终于恢复时，贝茨接到了前往纽约报到的命令。 他的任务是征用物资，并建立一个药房，以支持在归零地附近为应急小组设立的五个治疗地点。
“When I got there the pile was still carrying temperatures of 1,200 degrees in places and was still burning big time. 所有这些物质仍然在空气中释放。 You didn’t know what you were breathing. 空气中到处都是灰烬。 当你看到废墟的时候，它们有七层楼高。 这对我来说很难。” — David Bates
两年前，作为新墨西哥州阿尔伯克基灾难反应小组的一员，贝茨被部署到新泽西州的迪克斯堡陆军基地，作为“提供避难所行动”的一部分。 在那次旅行中，他为从饱受战争蹂躏的科索沃进入美国的难民提供药物治疗。
“That was my big break because I was working with emergency response people,” Bates said.
这段经历为他在911事件后前往纽约铺平了道路。 作为一名退伍军人，贝茨曾在美国空军担任医疗和药房技术员，然后在40岁时决定重返威尼斯人娱乐城的学校。 在获得药剂学学位后，他加入了美国公共服务队，实现了他在紧急救灾小组工作的愿望。 当他到达世贸中心遗址时，他所经历的一切都无法与之相比。
“When I got there the pile was still carrying temperatures of 1,200 degrees in places and was still burning big time,” he said. “所有这些物质仍然在空气中释放。 You didn’t know what you were breathing. 空气中到处都是灰烬。 当你看到废墟的时候，它们有七层楼高。 That was very hard for me.”
贝茨为那些忘记或用完慢性病药物的急救人员建立了病人呼叫单位。 这还不包括寻找和征用医疗用品，以建立一个药房，以支持现场医疗诊所，这些诊所每天接待400至500名志愿人员、军人和救灾人员。
贝茨说，由于空气中含有大量有毒粉尘，其中许多人很快就患上了呼吸系统疾病。 截至2021年6月，世界贸易中心健康计划报告称，有3500多名响应者死于与9/11袭击事件有关的各种疾病。
事情一度变得如此紧张，以至于一天早上，美国陆军医疗队的团长带着一个特殊的要求来到贝茨家。 氰化物气体逃逸到空气中，他需要氰化物解药包，贝茨赶紧打电话给药品供应商AmerisourceBergan，解释他的问题。 那天下午，贝茨手里拿着工具包。
“When the chief medical officer came back and I gave him the kits his response was, ‘I don’t even have the protocols written up for those yet.’ I said, ‘Well you’ve got ’em when you need ’em,’” Bates said. “That made me feel good because it surprised everybody.”
What particularly caught Bates’ attention during his time in New York was the enormous outpouring of support from the American people who wanted to help in some way.
“There was a tremendous response from Americans,” Bates said. “They sent us all kinds of stuff from their (medicine cabinets). Individuals, companies were all sending things they had and we had to go through all of that and see what was good, what was expired, what hadn’t expired, and see whether we could use it.”
此外，纽约的许多医院和其他医疗机构立即在城市街道上设立了小型诊所。 当联邦政府接手重建工作时，诊所被遗弃了，包括医疗用品在内的大部分东西都被留下了。 It was Bates’ job to confiscate and sort through all of those medications, many of them controlled substances.
“During chaos, things happen,” he said. “It was total chaos at that point. We were just trying to bring a little organization back to the world.”
到达世贸中心遗址近10天后，贝茨在现场从零开始建立并组织了一家药房，以供下一波救援人员使用。 贝茨随后回家完成一些年终文书工作，然后与妻子和家人去佛罗里达海滩度了一个应得的假期。
贝茨现在从公共卫生服务部门退休，是一名合同药剂师，在温斯洛印第安人健康中心工作，为纳瓦霍印第安民族提供护理。 在他的职业生涯中，他曾19次被派往全国各地的灾难现场。
He says watching the recent U.S. evacuation of Afghanistan “works on you a little bit because you know what started this whole Afghan response from the military action was right where we were on 9/11.”
And it’s those events surrounding 9/11 that still stand out as a defining moment in his life.
“It helped me be more caring about people who are really in need,” he said. “I got involved in emergency response and kept taking it to a deeper and deeper level. 我认为这是帮助那些迫切需要帮助的人的一种方式。 And these people were.”