This week, as the nation reflects on the terrorist attacks of 9/11, ten years later, one Conway surgeon has more vivid and lasting memories than most.
Dr. Morris Washington was inside the World Trade Center when the first plane struck.
Washington was employed on the teaching staff at St. Vincent's Medical Center in Manhattan at the time. September 11th, 2001 was a rare day off for Washington and he had planned to go fishing that day. But that morning, he got a call to come to the hospital to perform an operation.
During the ferry ride to the city from his home in New Jersey, Washington called his wife to complain. "I'm like, oh man, I should have told them to find someone else. Why did I blow this day? You should see it, the water's flat, it's gorgeous. I should have gone fishing."
As he would on any normal day, Washington made his way through the World Trade Center lobby that morning to get to the subway station for a ride to St. Vincent's. Suddenly, as he approached an elevator, he was hit by a blast of hot air that knocked him off his feet.
"Then all of a sudden, I hear glass breaking and I hear people screaming and I hear people running," Washington said. "And this all happens in a matter of seconds."
Washington had no idea what was going on, but his immediate instinct was to flee, so he ran outside, only to witness a horrible sight. "I can see out of the corner of my eyes there's people out on the street on fire, just flailing, engulfed in flames."
He later determined those bystanders had been doused by burning jet fuel.
Washington learned from a call to his wife that a plane had hit the World Trade Center tower, but he didn't know at the time how bad the situation was. Maybe it was just a small plane, he thought, piloted by someone who had taken advantage of the perfect day to make a flight over Manhattan and then got caught up in a gust of wind.
But minutes later, he heard a high-pitched whine that sounded like a missile. "And then all of a sudden I look up and it's the second plane, the second plane just flies right into the second tower. You could easily just see it. It's a passenger plane," he remembered.
By then, it was obvious what was going on. "Everybody knew at that time that it was terrorism and we didn't know whether another plane was going to come."
Washington made his way to the hospital, where he and others on the staff prepared for mass casualties that never came. "And basically, we didn't get anything. Most everybody died."
The staff treated only a few who had suffered burns or inhaled dust.
New York became a sad, frightened place after that day, Washington said. Not long after, he left for a private practice in a smaller New Jersey hospital closer to his home. He moved to Conway six months ago to head up the new bariatric surgery unit at Conway Medical Center.
Washington said he doesn't feel survivor's guilt, but he is well aware of how close he came to death.
"In the second building, the plane actually hit a little lower and fire actually came into the lobby and people got burned. So I guess I was just very lucky that I was not inside the building, not inside the second tower that got hit."
Ten years later, Washington said what happened on 9-11 is definitely not a fond memory and it did change his life forever.
"And I just hope that it never happens again."
