The Bridge


The Bridge

Facing disaster in your own backyard

By Patrick Dougherty

Wednesday, Day 1

I got home from my yoga class about 7:30, feeling refreshed and ready to make some dinner. I turned on the computer and looked at my e-mails. There was one from a friend in California that said, "Oh, my God. Your bridge! What a nightmare. I pray that you and your family are well and all of you are safe." I had no idea what she was talking about.

I went to the TV and turned it on. There to my horror was a bridge that I'd crossed hundreds, maybe thousands of times, and it was sprawling in a twisted heap. Bridge 9440, located only a few miles from my home in Minneapolis, had collapsed into the Mississippi River. A semitrailer was on fire, next to a ruined school bus. People were milling around, some obviously in shock, some bloodied, some carrying stretchers, some in the water. Ambulances and police were everywhere. I was stunned. Bridges don't fall down, especially just a few miles from my house.

I thought of my kids, but I knew where they were and that they were safe. I wondered if anybody else I knew was in the midst of the wreckage. I sat mesmerized in front of the TV for more than an hour, with the growing urge to do something. Sitting alone, watching and feeling helpless, was terrible. I wanted to go down to the bridge, but I knew the area was in turmoil and I knew I'd only be in the way.

Thursday, Day 2

I turned on the television as soon as I got up the next morning. There were still only a few known dead, although there were many injured and missing; exactly how many was still unknown. I found myself haunted by the idea that some clients might not come in, ever.

My first client of the day, Dan, talked about the bridge for 15 to 20 minutes. We swapped stories about what we'd heard on the news. I don't think I could not have talked about it with my first client. The bridge was only about three or four miles away, and my heart was aching. I was quite preoccupied with the tragedy unfolding as we spoke.

Then, when he shifted the conversation to talk about his marriage, I felt a surge of irritation and judgment. How could we talk about his usual "issues" when all this was going on? I was disappointed and judgmental that he didn't want to talk more about the disaster and its aftermath. I took a deep breath. Where was this was coming from? Clearly, whatever his needs, I still needed to talk about the bridge. If I couldn't be at the center of the aftermath, I wanted at least to feel myself a part of it in my office, but I reminded myself that my clients weren't required to share my agenda.

I'd been seeing my next client, Kate, twice a week for more than 10 years. As soon as she walked in, she began to weep and said, "My God, do you know anybody who was there?" I answered, "Not that I know of." She cried some more and then said, "Whatever you do, don't turn this on me and make it therapeutic. This is happening to both of us." Very relieved, I assured her that idea hadn't crossed my mind. So Kate and I spent the entire hour on the events going on around us and what people throughout the city must be going through. She did a lot of the talking, but I did a fair share, too. I was relieved to be able to say so much, to be able not to have to stay locked into an emotionally neutral therapeutic role. In fact, just being another human being who wasn't magically immune to the devastation that had taken place seemed the most "therapeutic" thing to do—therapeutic for both of us.

During the lunch hour, I ran over to the Red Cross, and stood in line with many others. At least here I could do something that would directly benefit the victims. I filled out a questionnaire, waited for a long while to get called in, and then sat down with a woman while she took my blood pressure and I answered about 50 questions. Everything seemed fine until the second-to-last question. Twenty-five years ago, I'd lived in Northern Ireland for a few months, and because I'd been exposed to mad cow disease back then, I wasn't allowed to give blood now. All I wanted to do was help, and I couldn't even give a pint of blood!

Returning to my office after lunch was difficult. Much was still happening at the bridge site, and I wanted to be there. Doing therapy seemed irrelevant. My next three clients hardly brought up the bridge—lost in their own misery, or from a part of town not affected so much, or merely wrapped up in their own worlds.

Tony was my last client of the day. He'd been home yesterday from work because he'd been taking a few vacation days, mostly to find relief from a stressful job. His office wasn't far from the bridge, and just about all his colleagues regularly traveled across it. Last night, he'd been distraught, not knowing if any of them had been on the bridge when it collapsed; today, he'd called in to the office, and everyone seemed accounted for. He said he'd heard that people were crying at the office.

He'd been obsessed all day, turning the TV on and off, feeling overwhelmed, wracked by guilt for not being at work. He couldn't decide what was right to do. How much TV should he watch? how much did he want to watch? was it okay to cut the grass instead? He looked at me for answers. I could really understand his dilemma: in some ways, it was the same one I was having. The best I could muster for him was to be as present as I could and acknowledge that no one had answers at that moment. "Tony," I finally said, "I don't think there's a right way to handle this. We're all in the same boat, trying to figure it out as we go along, hour by hour." I don't think either of us felt relieved by this answer, but we both understood it was the best we could come up with at the moment.

Then it came—what seemed like my chance to do something—in the form of a request on the Internet: "Can you help?" I was a volunteer behavioral health professional for the Medical Reserve Corps of Ramsey County, and they were asking me to spend time with the bereaved families of the people missing in the wreckage at the bridge site. When I answered the e-mail, the response team asked that I come in on Saturday. Somehow I got through my Friday sessions, eagerly awaiting a chance to do something more real and practical to help out with the tragedy.

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