“I worked for the US government in Nairobi, Kenya on August 7, 1998, when terrorists bombed the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. I managed the operations center, which coordinated the rescue and relief efforts. Over 5000 people were injured and 211 people died in Nairobi. With no 911 and no ambulance service, the victims became the rescuers. Victims came out of the embassy and the adjacent buildings, to make sure they were alive, and then they went back in to pull out their injured friends, and later, the body parts of their dead friends.

Once the immediate rescue effort was over, I helped to design and manage a relief effort for the Kenyan victims. I remained in Kenya and ran this program for two years, following the bombing. In addition to my regular job, I worked on the bomb recovery everyday.

I lost my best friend in the bombing, as well as many other colleagues. I ran on adrenaline for about a month. The problems started after that. I couldn’t sleep; I had nightmares at night and flashbacks during the day. The bombing activated many previous traumatic memories as well. I found that when I played golf, traumatic memories replayed as movies as in my head. I couldn’t concentrate. While I was working incredibly hard, I wasn’t very interesting in anything. I didn’t pay attention to my family. I would go home, take a nap, have dinner and play computer solitaire for hours on end.

I worked with a therapist for two years in Kenya. The counseling was invaluable in helping me understand that what I was experiencing was a normal reaction to abnormal events. It helped me understand what was happening to me and while it kept me sane, it didn’t knock out the intrusive thoughts, the nightmares or the lack of sleep.

When I returned to the US two years later, I was referred to receive the treatment that uses alternating stimulation, as is used in the Rescue Worker CDs. I had read widely on PTSD and was convinced that the trauma creates a chemical change in our brains. This technique, which uses alternating sounds and tapping helps to re-balance the right and left hemispheres, changing the traumatic memories from intrusive movies that kept playing in my head to regular memories. The memories are still there in vivid detail, but now I have to bring them up into my mind, just like any other memory. I can now sleep and I am no longer playing movies in my head. Reviewing the traumatic scene while listening to alternating drum sounds and having my shoulders tapped has shown me that this is a fast way to put traumatic memories in their proper place.

Lee Ann Ross
10/1/01

“After one lengthy session in which alternating stimulation (drum sounds and shoulder tapping) was used as I reviewed traumatic memories from my past, I felt the weight of a huge concrete block removed from my chest. A lifetime of toxic trauma from early childhood through Vietnam and law enforcement that had been torturing me my entire life was suddenly drained from every pore in my body. I slept for 18 hours and awoke cleansed and alive. I don’t know how it works; only that it does.”

Chuck McCormick, FBI Special Agent, Retired