- 1
- 2
- 3
- next
- | single page
In the days after the terrorist attacks, few people had so intimate a look at the destruction in New York as Morning Call Photo Editor Naomi Halperin and her husband, Paul Schoff, of Salisbury Township. They came to the city with two dogs specially trained to comfort people. A year later, Halperin recalls how the couples Dalmatians, Trapper and Hawkeye, filled a need at ground zero.
The Army sergeant who was assigned to escort us said, OK, heres the deal: Theres a lot of firefighters and rescue people at the Salvation Army tent. Ill take you as far as there, but dont go any farther.
We had gotten boots for the dogs to wear because of the debris, so we put them on, and they hated them. They were walking funny and trying to kick them off. That made everybody laugh. When the boots did come off, firefighters would run over to help put them back on. It was a distraction for them, a really good thing, and I saw that. So every time Trapper and Hawkeye had their boots replaced, I made sure that they could kick them off again.
As I walked, I watched the ground, making sure the dogs werent picking up any debris. Your head doesnt make the connection of what you just saw until moments later, while youre seeing something else. I saw things that looked like bits of body parts buried in the debris and the mud. You werent sure what you were looking at, but you knew anyway what it was.
Finally, the Army guy said, Heres the Salvation Army tent. You can be in this area.
What he didnt mention was that we were at ground zero.
A place for Dalmatians
I stood there and looked up and couldnt breathe. This was a week after the World Trade Center came down. All the pictures that I had looked at the first few days, probably about 10,000 images from every wire service, one worse than the other, one more amazing than the other, and the videotape of the planes crashing into the towers, none of that touched this.
Being a journalist, I know what a dead body smells like. This wasnt just that. This was death and sweat and fire and fuel and smog. It looked like probably what World War II looked like.
Within seconds, firefighters surrounded us to see and pet the dogs. I think a lot of it had to do with the dogs breed. Many of them had Dalmatians of their own, grew up with Dalmatians, had a firehouse with Dalmatians.
There was one firefighter who just wanted to hold a dog by the leash. He didnt want to talk; he just wanted to hold the dog and pet him.
I suspect that none of the people we visited remember what Paul and I look like from the knees up. These people talked baby talk to the dogs and asked questions like: What do you feed them? Do they need a lot of exercise? Do they get along with each other?
It seemed like inane conversation, but with their backs to the horror, and their looking at the dogs and petting them and talking about their families and their own pets, we were amazed.
Thats because even before wed left for New York, Id said, Paul, this is probably stupid to bring therapy dogs there. They need search and rescue dogs. But that was all out the window when it looked like we could offer normal for a minute, or maybe five minutes.
That day, efforts at the site had gone from search and rescue to search and recovery. And they had just made a particularly gruesome recovery. Somebody said they had found 14 firefighters together and were bringing them out.
Firefighter escort
After five or six hours, the dogs started to get tired. We could tell because they started shifting their weight on their legs and looking around. We went back to the v-mat area, the veterinary haz-mat for animals, where they had to be decontaminated. Showers, hoses. The authorities were worried about rats and disease.
They gave the dogs new boots and checked their emotional state, playing with them a little to see what their temperament was like. There was an animal chiropractor who gave them each a massage, and they were hip to that.
Before wed left ground zero, the firefighters had said, Are you coming back tomorrow?
The Army sergeant who was assigned to escort us said, OK, heres the deal: Theres a lot of firefighters and rescue people at the Salvation Army tent. Ill take you as far as there, but dont go any farther.
We had gotten boots for the dogs to wear because of the debris, so we put them on, and they hated them. They were walking funny and trying to kick them off. That made everybody laugh. When the boots did come off, firefighters would run over to help put them back on. It was a distraction for them, a really good thing, and I saw that. So every time Trapper and Hawkeye had their boots replaced, I made sure that they could kick them off again.
As I walked, I watched the ground, making sure the dogs werent picking up any debris. Your head doesnt make the connection of what you just saw until moments later, while youre seeing something else. I saw things that looked like bits of body parts buried in the debris and the mud. You werent sure what you were looking at, but you knew anyway what it was.
Finally, the Army guy said, Heres the Salvation Army tent. You can be in this area.
What he didnt mention was that we were at ground zero.
A place for Dalmatians
I stood there and looked up and couldnt breathe. This was a week after the World Trade Center came down. All the pictures that I had looked at the first few days, probably about 10,000 images from every wire service, one worse than the other, one more amazing than the other, and the videotape of the planes crashing into the towers, none of that touched this.
Being a journalist, I know what a dead body smells like. This wasnt just that. This was death and sweat and fire and fuel and smog. It looked like probably what World War II looked like.
Within seconds, firefighters surrounded us to see and pet the dogs. I think a lot of it had to do with the dogs breed. Many of them had Dalmatians of their own, grew up with Dalmatians, had a firehouse with Dalmatians.
There was one firefighter who just wanted to hold a dog by the leash. He didnt want to talk; he just wanted to hold the dog and pet him.
I suspect that none of the people we visited remember what Paul and I look like from the knees up. These people talked baby talk to the dogs and asked questions like: What do you feed them? Do they need a lot of exercise? Do they get along with each other?
It seemed like inane conversation, but with their backs to the horror, and their looking at the dogs and petting them and talking about their families and their own pets, we were amazed.
Thats because even before wed left for New York, Id said, Paul, this is probably stupid to bring therapy dogs there. They need search and rescue dogs. But that was all out the window when it looked like we could offer normal for a minute, or maybe five minutes.
That day, efforts at the site had gone from search and rescue to search and recovery. And they had just made a particularly gruesome recovery. Somebody said they had found 14 firefighters together and were bringing them out.
Firefighter escort
After five or six hours, the dogs started to get tired. We could tell because they started shifting their weight on their legs and looking around. We went back to the v-mat area, the veterinary haz-mat for animals, where they had to be decontaminated. Showers, hoses. The authorities were worried about rats and disease.
They gave the dogs new boots and checked their emotional state, playing with them a little to see what their temperament was like. There was an animal chiropractor who gave them each a massage, and they were hip to that.
Before wed left ground zero, the firefighters had said, Are you coming back tomorrow?
