Valley Is Proud of Its Kobe Medical Team : Japan’s jolt may have scared us, but some rose to the occasion

From an emotional and psychological standpoint, the timing of the powerful earthquake in Kobe, Japan, showed no mercy to Southern Californians already rattled by the anniversary of the Northridge quake. It’s safe to say that several of us were already a bit anxious and edgy over the memory of that 4:31 a.m. jolt on Jan. 17, 1994. Also, the Kobe quake was an early morning temblor that struck before many people had left home, just like Northridge.

It didn’t help that we were also trying to digest the grim news that we can supposedly expect a series of 7.2 to 7.6 earthquakes here in the coming years. It didn’t help that some of us were trying to imagine what a 7.2 quake would be like, when the Kobe temblor struck. It certainly didn’t help to know that some of the aftershocks from one of those 7-magnitude quakes could be close, if not equal in power to Northridge.

It didn’t help that many of us had built up an image of Japanese superiority in earthquake preparedness. It didn’t help to see that image shattered, because it led us to question how prepared we might be. And one could not view the television images of the incredible devastation in Kobe without wondering whether we were watching Southern California 10 years or five years from now, or less.

For those reasons, several people could not even bear to watch, listen or read about the news coverage from Kobe, much less think about going there to help. Calls to the region’s psychological crisis centers were up by as much as 20%, and walk-in traffic at community mental health centers was brisk.

That is the context in which to view Times reporter Jon D. Markman’s stories about the five Northridge Hospital Medical Center doctors and eight nurses who joined a Southern California medical team and headed off to Kobe to help. Said Northridge emergency room physician Ed Lowder, “We all went into medicine to help people, and (Kobe) is a place where people need help.” They were joined by a Sherman Oaks doctor, a Valencia paramedic, and a Universal Studios nurse. At Northridge, there were so many volunteers that many were turned away for fear that the hospital wouldn’t have enough workers to operate fully.

Sure, it can be argued that these people are trained to put their emotional baggage aside during times of emergency and that their willingness to help was predictable, if not entirely unexpected. But it can also be argued that no one gets closer to the scope of a natural disaster than the medical workers who have to deal with the thousands who are injured. Few could have blamed them for passing this time around, especially since the Japanese government was not exactly clamoring for hands-on U.S. assistance.

Few would have blamed them if they had simply given up after having been initially relegated to minor, hand-holding, non-emergency roles by Kobe health authorities. They could have simply come back home, knowing that they had at least tried to help. Instead, they were persistent. They stayed on and eventually were allowed to practice hands-on medicine and really help Kobe’s quake victims. They returned home only when other Japanese doctors were allowed into the Kobe area.

They are a symbol of our resilience. Their generosity and perseverance should give us all a feeling of pride.