For almost three months, Daphne Dixon, a quiet attentive woman with a big smile, has been living with her sister Velma and helping her out around the house.
Velma lives on Fairmount Avenue in Jersey City, and she has recently been in and out of Jersey City Medical Center on Baldwin Avenue to treat a variety of health concerns like kidney and heart failure.
The Dixons are originally from Cove City, N.C. Dixon still lives there, while most of her brothers and sisters have moved to other Southern states, with the exception of Velma.
"She was the one who moved the farthest," Dixon said during an interview in front of the Medical Center last week. "I’ve been caring for her. She is getting better, but she wasn’t so well before."
Dixon is a public school teacher and has been a certified Emergency Management Services worker since 1992. She joined the EMS to give back to the community, something she learned from her mother Eleanor. Throughout the years Dixon has been part of small rescue missions, but nothing to write home about. On the morning of Sept. 11, Dixon was with her sister at the Medical Center’s intensive care unit watching television when she saw news of the World Trade Center disaster. Dixon’s first reaction was to get up from her chair. She rushed to a nearby window in the room and saw the crisis manifest itself across the river.
Immediately, Dixon said, the personnel at the hospital asked visitors over the loudspeaker to evacuate the building. Nurses told her they wanted to make room for injured people from the attack.
"I kept thinking, ‘What in the world is happening?’" she said. "To actually see a disaster was a first for me."
Instead of leaving the premises, Dixon went to the hospital’s emergency area to volunteer her services. One of the emergency room coordinators told her she could go on board an ambulance unit. Dixon quickly joined three other paramedics and headed to Liberty State Park, where ferries were bringing people from the World Trade Center for emergency medical attention.
"It was like a nightmare," Dixon said last week. "The sky was black. The people getting off the ferry looked like zombies. The people were really messed-up."
Dixon, along with the other paramedics, cared for a woman in a business suit in her early 30s who suffered major injuries on both her legs. The woman, Dixon said, cried the entire way from the park to the Medical Center as she told the tale of horror from that day.
"She was really shocked," Dixon said with a look of disbelief. "She had bruises, abrasions, and was bleeding."
During her years of training Dixon said, she never expected to be involved in a major crisis of such magnitude. Over 300 doctors were at the site, along with hundreds of ambulances, police officers, military personnel, and American Red Cross workers.
As the long day wore on, Dixon helped at the triage centers at the park. The entire time she said she felt safe and secure, and most importantly, proud to be helping people.
"It didn’t feel like America," she said. "It felt like a Hollywood movie."
Dixon stayed at the park until almost 9 p.m. She devoted the entire day to the rescue and relief effort. When she came home, she talked to her sister to make sure she was fine, and went to bed. She was exhausted.
"I wanted to help people," Dixon said. "Never in a million years did I think this would happen."
Velma Dixon was not surprised her sister helped in the relief effort.
"She always loved to help people," Velma said during a phone interview from the Medical Center. "I wasn’t worried for her, because I knew God was with her."
Dixon is staying in Jersey City for another month, then she’ll go back home. She said that she wouldn’t want to talk about what happened on Sept. 11 when she sees her friends and colleagues. She just wants things to go back to normal.