Combat Medic Florida National Guardsman Paying Price for 9-11

If you forgot about 9-11-2001, there were a lot of folks rushing to do whatever they could to help the survivors and find whatever remains they could. One of them was an Army National Guardsman from right here in Florida. Reading his story and what happened to him, it only seemed right to put into context what he did back then. This is from Tampa Tribune great report by Howard Altman.

Garrett Goodwin was a medic, working in the emergency room at Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg, in September 2001.

On Tuesday morning, Sept. 11, he was in bed, watching TV before an afternoon shift, when he saw what turned out to be United Flight 175 hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center.

Goodwin, a combat medic with the Army National Guard who had experience in disaster recover efforts, says he packed his bag, hopped in his truck and drove down to MacDill Air Force Base, hoping to catch a flight north to help during the unfolding catastrophe.

But nothing was flying anywhere. So he and a friend drove north, toward the Pentagon.

“We did rescue work for three or four hours, but there was no one to save, so we went to New York,” Goodwin says.

They arrived about 6:30 a.m., Sept. 12. Goodwin says he checked in with the military authorities on scene, they told him what he could do, and he was given a “red card” allowing him access.

For the next 24 days, he worked between 18 and 20 hours in what used to be the tallest building in America. It had become a mass grave.

So how did he end up this way?

Tampa man ill just now from help he gave at Ground Zero
Tampa Tribune
By Howard Altman
Tribune Staff
Published: September 27, 2015

Garrett Goodwin is a casualty of al-Qaida’s war against the U.S.

Shortly after the jihadi organization turned aircraft into weapons, obliterating the World Trade Center in New York, hitting the Pentagon and crashing into a Pennsylvania field, Goodwin made the trip from Florida to Manhattan to help recovery efforts. He spent more than three weeks in the smouldering pile of twisted beams that was once the World Trade Center — the place where Pope Francis on Friday summoned the world to “unity over hatred.”

Now, Goodwin is paying the price.

It includes a stay, since last Tuesday, at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where he is desperately seeking help for the maladies he believes are a result of his time at Ground Zero.

Finally, after a health scare that started on the 14th anniversary of the attacks, Goodwin realized he needed greater medical attention.

There are many others like him — first responders who have became casualties of war by dint of their time searching the wreckage, first for survivors, then for remains.

Every day, there are more Garrett Goodwins, coming forward seeking help.
read more here