Thursday, October 1, 2026
For Dr. Suzanne Sirota Rozenberg, Sept. 11, 2001, began like any other workday. But as she drove to work, the physician heard reports of the first plane striking the World Trade Center and quickly realized the day would be anything but ordinary.
Rozenberg, who has worked at St. John’s Episcopal Hospital in Far Rockaway since 1996, is now chief of dermatology and program director of the Dermatology Residency Program at Episcopal Health Services.
She was with the hospital’s family practice team at the time. When she arrived at the hospital that morning, she ran to the waiting room, where staff members were watching the television coverage.
“I watched the second plane hit, and then the buildings go down,” Rozenberg recalled. “We were like, ‘Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God.’”
Almost immediately, the hospital shifted into disaster-response mode. Noncritical patients were discharged or moved to make room for an expected wave of critically injured patients. Staff members were told to remain at the hospital, and physicians canceled their regular office hours as everyone prepared for what they believed would be an influx of victims.
Hospitals outside Manhattan, including St. John’s and others near the Queens-Nassau border, were expected to receive stable patients transferred from city hospitals so those facilities could focus on treating the most seriously injured.
But the anticipated wave of patients never came.
“We were sitting and waiting and waiting for patients to come in,” Rozenberg said. “And no patients from those other hospitals came.”
As the reality of the devastation became clearer, the hospital staff remained ready to help. Rozenberg described the atmosphere as one of dread mixed with an instinctive desire to do something.
“Everybody’s basic instincts as a physician kicked in — what can I do to help?” she said.
Staff members initially expected to treat acute trauma, including broken bones, head injuries and other musculoskeletal injuries. Instead, they spent much of Sept. 11 waiting and watching the news.
The following day, some patients began arriving with injuries sustained while fleeing Lower Manhattan. Rozenberg treated people experiencing pain in their legs and joints after walking or running long distances to escape the area. Others struggled with anxiety and the psychological effects of what they had witnessed.
Looking back 25 years later, Rozenberg said the hospital’s expectations that day were focused on immediate trauma. What followed in the years afterward was a much longer health crisis.
“Today, you’re dealing with all the cancers and the lung disease from all the debris,” she said. “That’s today’s feelings, but then you were dealing with the acute injury.”
For Rozenberg, the effects of Sept. 11 extended well beyond the hospital. For years afterward, she said, she could not listen to music while driving. Instead, she listened constantly to the news, worried about what might happen next.
Even today, she said, seeing the two beams of light at the site brings the memories rushing back.
“It changed our lives irrevocably,” Rozenberg said, recalling the fear surrounding travel, bridges, airplanes and the possibility of another attack. “You had to learn the new normal in the world.”
She also said the experience underscored the important role health care workers and first responders play during crises — even when the patients they expect never arrive.
“Everybody’s role is important,” she said. “We’re always the first ones that show up. We run to help. We don’t run the other way.”
To read more from the Herald's Remembering 9/11, 25th anniversary special section, click here.
