Wednesday, October 10, 2001
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Wednesday, October 10, 2001 |
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Message from a volunteer: Keep giving ... it's helping By DAVE
HAMRICK
Don't stop giving. That's the message from Fayette County resident Wilma Brewer, 63, back home after more than two weeks of volunteer work in New York City. "Man, do they need it there!" said Brewer, who said she put in 12-hour days helping at the site of the Sept. 11 disaster. "This thing's going to last a long time." Brewer packed her bags soon after news of the attack on the World Trade Center came out, and arrived there the day after thinking she would be involved in staffing a mobile morgue as part of a disaster mortuary rescue operation team. Having worked 10 years for the Fulton County Medical Examiner, she is a volunteer in the federally funded Public United Health Services Organization that renders such services. "I thought there would be a need for people who could tape autopsy reports," she said. But those services, it turned out, weren't needed. "The condition of the bodies was such that it wasn't needed this time," she said. There were few intact bodies to autopsy or prepare for burial. "So I helped in other areas," she said. "You felt good about doing something, whatever it was." Brewer found herself joining support efforts for the army of search, rescue and cleanup crews swarming over the site of the disaster. In a two-block area cordoned off by police, the American Red Cross and Salvation Army set up a massive relief station with row after row of water, drinks, food and other supplies, she said. She also helped put together detailed reports on the missing. "All the help that can be sent is sorely needed and will certainly be utilized," said Brewer, who also praised the efforts of local school, civic, business and other groups raising funds for the relief efforts thus far. Though the work was "exhausting," Brewer said she is drawn to it. "I may go back again in a couple of weeks," she said.
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