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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 9, 2021)
COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL | SEPTEMBER 9, 2021 | 9A told her he had recovered a charred adult hand with a child’s hand inside. Jenkins recalled the day he met Sal, an upbeat burly equipment operator. He learned her husband had just died,” Jen- asked if he lost anyone in the attack. Sal kins said. “In that phone conversation I turned his hard hat around to show the discovered she lived in Cottage Grove so FDNY photos of his brother and son. I came down to meet her. It was unbeliev- The deaths of 343 firefighters made it able!” the single deadliest incident for firefight- Gartman and Jenkins described some of their most memorable and moving ex- ers in American history. One heartbreaking experience Jenkins periences. They said rituals were every- had was seeing a catatonic young man on where. the ferry coming to see Ground Zero for Each morning as the workers returned the first time. to The Pile, people would line the road “When the man saw the site, he tried and clap for them. Stockbrokers on to scream but nothing came out and he their way to work would stop and cover just tightly clenched his fists,” Jenkins their heart with their hand to honor the recalled. “A golden retriever came over Ground Zero workers passing by. When- and sat next to him and the man started ever human remains were found a horn petting the dog first with one pinky and blast sounded and everybody stopped then slowly unclenched his hand. He then working and formed two lines and salut- told me he lost his fiancé and they were to ed as an American flag draped bucket was be married next week and now his whole brought down to the morgue. Pat said she and Uno walked over to a world was gone.” They both will never forget the awful catatonic man sitting on his bucket hold- smell that hung over the site. Jenkins de- ing his flashlight and crying. On another scribed it as a nauseating cocktail of acrid day, one of the workers broke down and chemicals — jet fuel and burnt building materials dampened by fire suppres- sion. Hundreds of thousands of tons of toxic debris con- taining more than 2,500 contaminants, including known carcinogens, were Matt Bjornn, Agent That’s when you can count ® Bus: 541-942-2623 spread across Lower Man- on State Farm . www.bjornninsurance.com hattan due to the collapse of I know life doesn’t come with a schedule. That’s why at State Farm the Twin Towers. Much of you can always count on me for the toxic dust was pulver- whatever you need – 24/7, 365. ized concrete. GET TO A BETTER STATE ™ . At the end of each day, CALL ME TODAY. Jenkins had a Hazmat team decontaminate his boots, but that wasn’t offered to Pat. Both say they still have their dusty boots to re- member their experience there. “It was not lost on me that there was some measure of the probability that we were walking on pulverized human re- mains,” Jenkins said. By May 2002, when the cleanup official- ly ended, workers had moved more than 108,000 truckloads — 1.8 million tons — of rubble to a Staten Island landfill. In the weeks after the attacks, few peo- ple on The Pile wore masks or respirators. Jenkins and Gartman agreed that it was especially difficult to interact and comfort a grief-stricken person wearing a respira- tor. Both Jenkins and Gartman are among the thousands of first responders and lo- cal residents who have been treated for cancer and other health conditions stem- ming their exposure to Ground Zero. Earlier this year, Gartman had a lung tumor surgically removed. Jenkins has a precancerous condition of his sinuses and esophagus and now has a raspy voice. They are also among the 70,000 workers and volunteers who struggle with symp- toms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Jenkins said, “It was the most remark- able response I’d ever seen to a human event. People came from everywhere and asked, ‘What can I do.’ The biggest chal- lenge for security was deciding who to let inside the area.” Gartman agreed. “I look back and think it was the most horrible but the most won- derful experience I ever had. I saw heroes and believe we were there representing so many people who wanted to give.” The Gartmans permanently moved to their Cottage Grove farm in 2002. Uno died in 2010 just before his 14th birthday. Pat kept one of his grandsons and named GROUND ZERO from A8 Anytime. Anywhere. Any day... 1101198.1 him “Dude”. Sadly, he died last year soon after Bill’s death. She still has Lucy, the mother of four litters with Uno, which produced 32 pups. After 19 years as a Cottage Grove resi- dent, this month Pat moves to Colorado to be closer to her daughter. As the 20th anniversary approached, Jenkins felt an urgency to pull together all the notes he’d written through the years and write a book. In his newly published book, “From Rubble to Redemption: A Ground Zero Chaplain Remembers,” he describes in detail his experiences in New York immediately after the terrorist at- tack. Jenkins said he was ready to write a book to never let people forget what ac- tually happened there. He said he felt he had a duty to tell what happened because he knows how a narrative can be crafted and how memories are extinguished over time. “In writing this book, I ‘followed the rubble’ and realized the ‘Face of God’ is the way God is toward people in The Bi- ble. “So I want people to know that in the rubble of their own lives, in the broken- ness of their own lives, as we minister to them we are like the face of God and they can see His face in the midst of the rubble they are dealing with. They need to know that God can bring redemption out of the rubble,” Jenkins said. During his two weeks in New York Jenkins had encounters with the victims’ families, political leaders like Rudy Gi- uliani and celebrities like Elton John. He said God showed up in very unique and amazing ways. His 210-page book has received posi- tive reviews and is available on Amazon and Kindle. State Farm, Home Office, Bloomington, IL BATTERY POWER MADE BY STIHL 1445 N Gateway Blvd Cottage Grove, OR 97424 Contact our New Patient Coordinator at 541.640.7625 PEACEHEALTH from A1 and with better outcomes. “The best thing to do to prevent the spread of COVID is vaccina- tion. Even with breakthrough cases that we’re seeing in the news, if you got vaccinated, but you get COVID, these cases tend to be less severe, and patients tend to recover better.” Recovery for patients is top of mind for health care workers right now, as there are staffing shortages due to the high number of patients. In addition, PeaceHealth an- nounced that “starting Aug. 31, 2021, all caregivers will be required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or submit a qualifying medical ex- emption.” In an Aug. 3 news release, Peace- Health’s Chief Physician Executive Dr. Doug Koekkoek said that nearly 80 percent of PeaceHealth caregiv- ers had already been vaccinated. On Sept. 1, local PeaceHealth officials released a statement about employee vaccination data in Lane County. While some new numbers were still coming in, “In the spirit of transparency, at this time we can offer the following range of unvac- cinated caregivers: 350-500 (6-9 percent) caregivers for all areas of the PeaceHealth Oregon network, including hospitals, clinics and ad- ministrative settings. Or, pulling just the hospital figures out of that total: 250-375 (6-9 percent) care- givers within PeaceHealth’s four Lane County hospitals.” According to the healthcare net- work, this new policy is a reflection of the organization’s commitment to ensure every patient receives safe care at PeaceHealth and is part of an approach to protect both caregivers and patients. Ormersher echoed this, saying, “With the increase in COVID cases, it really is important at this time that we’re taking every measure possi- ble to prevent further spread.” She said the messaging around COVID hasn’t changed that much since the pandemic began in March 2020 or since more of the communi- ty has become vaccinated. “The mainstay of preventing spread is really the same …: wearing a mask, avoiding large gatherings, especially if you’re in unmasked situations, and getting vaccinated,” she said. Even if someone does get the vi- rus after getting vaccinated, “the vaccine does help,” Ormersher said. “It reduces the length of illness — and that has been shown in multiple studies — it reduces the severity of illness, and it does reduce spread of the infection. You may see break- through cases, as no vaccine is 100 percent effective.” Two frequently-used vaccines, Pfizer, which earned FDA approval at the end of August, and Moderna, have about 80 percent efficacy in preventing infection. When added with social distancing, masking and avoiding close contact, health offi- cials hope to see COVID numbers go down. EVERYONE DESERVES A GREAT SMILE! n The Northwest’s Finest Gardening Seed n Flowers, Herbs, & Shrubs n Vegetable Transplants n Fruit Trees CALL TODAY TO SCHEDULE YOUR INITIAL CONSULTATION • 541.686.1732 Your Partners in Wellness NovaHealthPrimaryCare.com AFTER SCHOOL PROGRAMS! S.T.E.A.M. ROBOTICS 3D PRINTING VIRTUAL REALITY EUGENE CRESWELL 622 E. 22nd Ave Suite C 195 Melton Rd. 541.686.1732 541.686.1732 or visit us at www.thornton-ortho.com 20 Palmer Ave. n Cottage Grove n (541) 942-0510 Voted Best Senior Living Community in South Lane County! 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