The morning after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, Northwest Tissue Services Director Margery Moogk participated in a national conference call to assess the availability of skin grafts for burn victims in New York City and Washington, D.C.

Glenn Greenleaf of Lifecell, Corp., who, with Moogk co-chairs the Council of Accredited Tissue Banks at the American Association of Tissue Banks (AATB), organized the call. More than 25 banks and national AATB staff members took part.

Government officials had initially anticipated many burn victims from the attacks, so conference participants used the call to organize a network to track the availability of skin grafts in the event the New York Firefighters’ Skin Bank was unable to meet the demand. “We were ready to respond to any requests for skin grafts,” said Moogk.

Unfortunately, there were relatively few survivors and the tissue banks in the immediate areas were able to provide for those who were burn patients.

Future patients will benefit from the new network created by the September 12 conference call. For instance, the AATB established a 24-hour toll-free telephone number to field requests for tissue, established an emergency response plan and centralized information about available skin grafts.

In addition, the AATB has since begun educating emergency transporters about the need to move skin, like blood, during a crisis.