Posttraumatic and Acute Stress Responses in Hostages Held by Suicide Terrorists in the Takeover of a Moscow Theater

Abstract

In October 2002 armed suicide terrorists held over 800 theatergoers hostage for three days. The standoff ended when Russian Special Forces gassed and stormed the theater. The terrorists were killed and hostages were dragged to buses that took them to hospitals where unprepared doctors struggled to revive them. 130 hostages died: 125 from the gas, only five directly from the terrorists’ actions. An American author collaborated with colleagues from the Russian Academy of Sciences shortly after the event to study acute psychological responses of the hostages. This paper reports on posttraumatic and acute responses following the event in eleven hostages and makes recommendations for short-term interventions following such an ordeal.

Keywords

hostage suicide terrorism Impact of Events Scale hostage taking posttraumatic stress acute stress grief dissociation

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