9-11 Whistleblower: Ground Zero Eyewitness Testimony

Ground Zero 9/11: Blueprint for Terror Part I

Guns and Butter (2005)

This is a remarkable 2005 radio interview with a 9-11 whistleblower who spent four days as a rescue worker at Ground Zero. It provides important eyewitness evidence to the dire health hazards of the toxic particulate matter rescue workers and nearby residents were exposed to.

Indira Singh, who worked on Wall Street as a risk consultant for J P Morgan Chase, lived a few blocks from the Twin Towers. In her spare time she was a mountaineer and a certified (volunteer) Emergency Medical Technician (EMT).

Highlights from the interview:

10.45 When the first attack occurred, she returned to her apartment, changed into her EMT uniform and reported to an ad hoc triage center near World Trade Center Building 7. There was no coordinated civil defense rescue operation, in part because much of the police/fire department leadership were killed when the buildings collapsed. Compared to most rescue operations (earthquakes, etc), Ground Zero was unique, in part, because firefighters were unable to extinguish the burning ruble for four months, and, in part, due to the thick cloud of toxic particulate dust that persisted even longer.

11.45 Between 12 and 1 pm firefighters told Singh and her fellow rescue workers to move their triage station because “Building 7 is coming down.”

17.00 According to Singh, rescue workers labored round the clock for 48 hours pulling survivors from the rubble, stabilizing their injuries and summoning ambulances to take them to the hospital. They received no support (food, water, etc) from city, state or federal officials and had to break into nearby retail outlets to find food. After four days, they ceased to find living survivors and all were becoming increasing ill from the toxic fog. Singh was forced to leave the rescue effort due to increasing heart palpitations and difficulty breathing. When the EPA refused to declare the air around Ground Zero unsafe, she began organizing her friends to go door-to-door checking on the welfare of her neighbors.

25.00 By Nov 1, several neighborhoods were holding regular community meetings to pressure city, state and federal officials to address the growing health issues of rescue workers and residents adjacent to Ground Zero. Those who could afford to left lower Manhattan at this point to seek housing elsewhere.

27.00 Singh describes the total media blackout regarding the growing health crisis in lower Manhattan, including 11 anthrax scares and health department “spraying for cholera.”

29.00 Singh describes in detail the health symptoms of rescue workers and nearby residents, which were strangely reminiscent of radiation sickness: pervasive skin sores, loss of hair and teeth, palpitation, asthma, chronic cough, neurological dysfunction. Accessing treatment was virtually impossible because many victims had lost their jobs and health insurance.

33.00 After extensive lobbying, Mt Sinai Medical Center finally received a federal grant in December to do baseline monitoring (pulmonary/cardiac function, heavy metals screening) on rescue workers only. Residents experiencing health issues were excluded and no treatment was offered. All baseline medical screening results mysteriously vanished.

35.00 Singh contacted the CDC when many of her elderly and disabled neighbors – and illegal immigrants banks and other corporations hired to clean up their office buildings – started dying