Ex-ER Doctor Recalls Fear Treating Victims in 1995 Sarin Attack

Kamakura, Kanagawa Pref., March 18 (Jiji Press)--Recounting the sarin deadly nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system by the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult 30 years ago, a former emergency room physician has described the fear of having to treat large numbers of patients without knowing what happened to them at the very first stage of the incident.

Around 8 a.m. on March 20, 1995, Aum Shinrikyo members released sarin in train cars on three subway lines in the Japanese capital during the morning rush hour, leaving 14 people dead and over 6,000 others injured.

At 8:16 a.m. that day, St. Luke's International Hospital, located in Tokyo's Chuo Ward, was informed by the Tokyo Fire Department that an explosion had occurred on the subway system.

Just some 400 meters away from Tsukiji Station, the hospital was soon swamped with patients who arrived by foot, ambulance or taxi. Many of them complained that they could not breathe or that their eyes hurt. Some were sent to the hospital in a state of cardiopulmonary arrest. A total of about 640 victims of the sarin attack were treated at the hospital on the day.

Tetsu Okumura, 62, now an executive of the Japan Poison Information Center, was working as an emergency room physician at St. Luke's International Hospital at the time. "I felt scared, like I was being dragged into a bottomless pit. I felt everything in front of me turn pitch black," he said.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]