9/11 survivors coping with mental health
Survivors seeking mental help twenty years after 9/11 events
NEW YORK, N.Y. (KYMA, KECY/CBS) - Doctors report of patients seeking help twenty years after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Thousands of these patients being first responders, survivors, and family members among those that lived through the event.
Stephen Hess, an FDNY EMS tech that worked on Sept. 11, says he suffered health issues following the terror attacks, including breathing problems and mental health problems.
"It took me five years to come to therapy," Hess states," It was working, but I had long periods of wishing I never woke up in the morning, and then I actually contemplated suicide because between the pain from the lupus, the breathing."
According to Dr. Sandra Lowe, new patients are still coming every week to talk about the terror attacks. She's a medical director of the World Trade Center Mental Health program at Mount Sinai in New York.
"Most of them have post-traumatic stress disorder. But we also see individuals who have major depressive disorder, anxiety disorders," Dr. Lowe says, "We started to hear about people having an exacerbation of their symptoms, like more nightmares, or feeling more on edge."
She also states that 9/11 anniversary reactions are also common.
"The middle of August I start getting the anxiety and the stress," Hess later stated. "And even this morning, I was like contemplating canceling this and then I thought, you know, if this can help one other person."
