BEIRUT (AP) – Joana Dagher was unconscious and bled under a pile of debris in her apartment after the massive explosion in Beirut harbor in August, on the brink of death.
She survived thanks to the courage of her husband who took her out, the kindness of a stranger who transported her in his damaged car, and the help of her sisters during the chaos in the overwhelmed hospital.
But Dagher doesn’t remember anything: the 33-year-old mother of two lost her memory for two full months because of the trauma she suffered during the explosion, including a brain contusion and brain injuries.
“I lost my life on August 4th,” said Dagher. “I lost my house, I lost my memory, I lost two friends,” she added, referring to the neighbors who were killed in the explosion. “I lost my sanity, so I lost everything.”
The explosion in Beirut, killing more than 200 people and injuring more than 6,000, caused injuries to the mental health of those who experienced it on an even greater scale.
Dagher gradually regains her memory. But a different kind of pain lingers.
Although therapy is now helping, she said she doesn’t feel the same anymore. Dagher is usually a calm and independent person, her sister Jihane said. Now she’s experiencing outbursts of anger and stress, emotional shutdown, and sometimes becoming aggressive – all signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, experts say.
“The past 6 months have been a purgatory,” said Jihane. “When you see someone you love suffer so much, everyone suffers, you are helpless.”
The explosion was caused by a fire that ignited nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate stored in a port warehouse. One of the largest non-nuclear explosions ever recorded, the force ripped through the city, sending people flying through rooms and slicing them to pieces with flying glass. Windows and doors were blown out miles from the epicenter.
Even in a country that has experienced many wars and bombings, never before have so many people – tens of thousands – experienced the same traumatizing event directly at the same time.
It was added to the stress Lebanese already felt after multiple crises, including an unprecedented economic collapse, the coronavirus pandemic and a sense of helplessness after nationwide protests against corruption that failed to reach their goals.
“There are very high levels of fear and anxiety in the population,” said Mia Atwi, psychologist and president of Embrace, an organization dedicated to mental health awareness and support. “The majority of the population borders on a depressed mood bordering on clinical depression.”
The demand for therapists has exploded, making it difficult to find treatment, especially as many qualified experts are leaving the country.
Embrace expanded its clinic after the explosion and still has a waiting list of 60 people. Since the blast, it has supported 750 people. Most experience post-explosion symptoms, depression and anxiety, Atwi said. On the Embrace helpline, 67% of calls since August have come from people in emotional distress and 28% had thoughts of suicide.
The explosion left mental wounds even in those cases it did not physically injure.
Najla Fadel, 33, was miraculously scratch-free when the explosion shattered the glass windows of her home and seriously injured her child’s babysitter. In the last months of her pregnancy with her second child, Fadel transported the bleeding woman to the hospital on her own.
Since then she has been struggling with nightmares. She often wakes up with her heart pounding, thinking the explosion has happened again.
“I jump at every noise and look for shelter,” she says.
The worst, she said, are thunderstorms and the noise of Israeli warplanes regularly breaching and flying low through Lebanon’s skies.
“A few nights ago, when planes roamed over Beirut, I slept in the hallway,” she said. “This way I’m halfway through my nursery, I can grab them faster and run just in case.”
Fadel has seen a therapist for a while. Many others don’t get help.
“There are many people who are neglecting their mental health or not knowing what to do,” said Souraya Frem, president and co-founder of Cenacle De Lumiere, an organization that began providing free mental health support in Beirut after the explosion.
“People are struggling with poverty, how to make ends meet and that’s why they don’t see mental health as a priority,” said Frem.
From Perth, Australia, where she moved to after the blast, Sarah Copland said she had seen two therapists to deal with her loss.
In the explosion, shards of glass ripped through the small chest of her 2-year-old son Isaac, ending his short life. That day, she said, her life came to a halt.
“My last picture of my little boy is something a mother should never see,” she said. That comes to mind when I least expect it – we’re going to do something, and it comes. It’s very painful. ”
Copland was then employed by the UN in Beirut. Thousands of miles from Lebanon, memory haunts her.
“The sight or sound of broken glass worries me,” she said. “When I’m in bed at night, I hear the wind on the windows and it really scares me. I freeze because it is reminiscent of the wish sound when the explosion came through our windows. ”
Copland’s 2-month-old son Ethan keeps her going, she said, but the pain is deep. “Hearing children scream, even though it is in delight, takes me back to the hospital, to Isaac and to the children screaming in pain.”
Now in a temporary apartment outside Beirut, Joana Dagher decided to stay in Lebanon despite the thousands leaving.
“I want to be close to those I love, to my family and I will not let those politicians remove me from my home or my country, I stay here to see justice,” she said.
But like most survivors of that gruesome day, there is a fear that never leaves her. “The fear of losing those I love is stronger than ever.”