Perspectives on disaster mental health intervention from the USNS Comfort

Abstract

Immediately after September 11, 2001, the USNS Comfort was deployed to provide relief to the rescue workers involved with the World Trade Center collapse. The members of the behavioral healthcare team had little field experience in disaster psychiatry and had to organize a response quickly. Due to the unique nature of the assignment, the behavioral care team had to take nontraditional approaches to care. Through preparation of the team to implementation of care, the team learned a great deal about disaster mental health interventions. These perspectives are compared with those in the psychiatric literature to better understand the lessons of September 11th.