When the need arose to screen U.S. Senate and House
of Representatives staff for exposure to anthrax, HRSA employees
Cmdr. David Kelly and Lt. Cmdr. Peter Martineau were among the
first public health officials on the scene.
As part of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps
Readiness Force, Kelly and Martineau, both registered nurses,
were deployed to Capitol Hill to obtain specimens from employees,
explain treatment procedures, and administer medication.
They also helped screen postal workers from the Washington,
D.C., Brentwood Post Office for anthrax exposure.
Kelly
and Martineau, both of whom work in HRSA's Bureau of Health
Professions (BHPr), are among a group of HRSA Commissioned
Corps officers that responded to the anthrax scare and the
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. In the first days following
the attacks in New York and on the Pentagon, Capt. Laura McNally
joined the Emergency Support Team housed at Federal Emergency
Management Agency headquarters in Washington, D.C., to help
coordinate health and medical services where needed.
McNally, who works in HRSA's Center for Quality, met President
Bush when he visited FEMA.
Cmdr. Henry Lopez, a licensed clinical social worker, was
dispatched to Pennsylvania to provide grief counseling to
families of victims from United Airlines flight 93, which
crashed in Somerset County. He also worked at Ground Zero
in New York City to help members of the Disaster Mortuary
Operational Response Team cope with anxieties stemming from
their victim identification efforts. Lopez is acting director
of BHPr's Division of Health Careers Diversity and Development.
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