{"id":2766,"date":"2021-03-15T08:55:58","date_gmt":"2021-03-15T13:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookofdreams.us\/?p=2766"},"modified":"2021-03-22T17:44:03","modified_gmt":"2021-03-22T22:44:03","slug":"march-15-the-distance-between-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookofdreams.us\/2021\/03\/march-15-the-distance-between-us\/","title":{"rendered":"The Distance Between Us – My Interview With Dr. Nijher"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
We all have our days of reckoning: the day we are born, the day we realize who we are. For Dr. Navinder Nijher, it took two days for the latter. Unlike me and my friends, who remember 9\/11 through the TV images, through our interactions with our distant locales, Dr. Nijher was on ground zero. Securing in body bags, his team collected torsos, arms of people who had jumped off the skyscrapers. To save a life from debris, they made life and death decisions like whether to chop a limb or wait for equipment. Stationed in the American Express Center with oxygen tanks and other supplies, they watched and worried about additional structures collapsing. Dr. Nijher had seen trauma before, such as gunshots. \u201cBut those victims still had their skin tone. Here, everyone was the same color.<\/a>\u201d Ashy. A weeping firefighter handed them his friend\u2019s body in a bag and lunged back into the smoke. He refused their care, focused on helping others. Dr. Nijher never saw him again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n