BRUNSWICK, Ga. — On Sept. 10, 2001, then-Moultrie resident Jennifer Dowdy couldn’t have been happier. She had just finished celebrating her 16th birthday when she went to sleep that night and she was preparing to take her driver’s license test the following Saturday. The next morning, she was getting ready to go to school like it was any other normal Tuesday morning. 

By the time she settled into her first period, she watched the events of 9/11 unfold on the television like so many other Americans.

“I watched in despair as thousands lost their lives in the attacks,” Dowdy said. 

She stated that everywhere she went, she would hear more news of the tragedy, heroism and sacrifice that have so often coincided with remembrance of the attacks.

“I remember standing in line at the DMV with my parents to process my license. I was just watching it on the news. There were so many stories that came out about how people were helping or the stories of those who lost loved ones on that day.”

Dowdy recalled her inability to help and wondered what she could do.

“I observed the police officers, firemen, EMS and other first responders jump into action without hesitation and without fear. I heard the stories of the overwhelmed hospitals where doctors and nurses waited to receive patients. I watched images of first responders digging through the rubble at the Pentagon, the Twin Towers and the field in Pennsylvania. I wanted to go to those places and help them. Why couldn’t I? I was young and inexperienced, but strong and able bodied,” Dowdy recalled.

After that week she began to rethink her career path. At that point she was already planning on studying business administration and was an avid member of the high school’s business club. 

“Both my parents were in business so I always grew up around it.”

Dowdy’s mother, Paula Neely, was and still remains a church administrator at First Baptist Church of Moultrie, and her father, John Neely, used to own Neely’s White Auto at the intersection of north and south Main Street where Three Crazy Bakers is now located.

“After that week, I started rethinking my future,” Dowdy said. “I knew of a profession where I could make a difference and save lives. That’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to save others from hurt and suffering.”

Dowdy made a simple choice that would define her future. She began to switch her elective study to the healthcare course that was offered at the high school. She would eventually become a nursing assistant in 2003 at Colquitt Regional Medical Center. She would later graduate from Colquitt County High School in 2004 and attend ABAC in Fall of the same year. 

After graduating with an associate’s degree in nursing in 2006, she prepared to take her RN registrations. She would eventually go on to graduate Georgia Southern University with a bachelor’s degree in nursing before obtaining her master’s, also at GSU. She has been working as a nurse for almost 20 years because of one day, she said.

“It’s been a humbling experience,” she said. “The gratitude I get from my patients and their families, it’s made such a difference in not only their lives but mine. Despite the stress, the overtime, overnights, I don’t have a single regret. I wouldn’t change a thing.”

When asked by The Observer how she thought she’d react if something drastic like 9/11 were to occur now, what she thought she’d do, she stated that she’s already been part of something bigger than herself.

“When I first heard about the project ya’ll were trying to do, I spoke to my mother about it. I knew that I would try to help if I could, if something like that happened here but she said something that stuck with me: ‘Jennifer, this whole COVID thing is your 9/11.’ I hadn’t thought of it before but she was right. Hospitals were packed to the brim and people were dying, it’s a crisis. I know that every person in the healthcare field has been working ever since this began. There’s just that drive to help in me and in all of us.”

Dowdy currently works as a family nurse practitioner in Brunswick, Ga. She stated that she hopes that the work she’s done over her career has shown those who died in the terror attacks, that it was not in vain.

“I hope the families of the victims know for so many reasons that their deaths were not in vain and that those victims and first responders that served and gave their lives are the reason I have impacted the lives of so many for the past almost 20 years. I will never forget.”