Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Through Hell & High Water series
James Zachary
group this lengthy series on Tulane and Charity in before and after
Katrina.
CHAPTER 1: THE EPIC STRUGGLE OF TWO HOSPITALS TO RESCUE THE ABANDONED
By Jane O. Hansen | Tuesday, May 30, 2006, 12:42 PM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New Orleans - It wasn't the dark that scared Sherry Hebert. It was
the silence.
The whir of the machines keeping her son alive at Charity Hospital
suddenly shut off, signaling a failure in the backup power system.
Sherry stood over her son's bed in the intensive care unit where he
lay unconscious. A ventilator had been breathing for him, an infusion
machine pumping in his medication, a dialysis machine cleansing his
blood.
Pointing a flashlight at a clear plastic tube attached to his bladder,
she watched helplessly as the tube filled with blood. Sherry knew what
that meant. Hunter, her 23-year-old son, would soon die.
I have to get him out. I have to get him help.
Across the ICU and behind a curtain, Carolyn Lewis read Scripture to
her son Preston, and sang "Jesus Loves Me" and "At the Cross,"
his favorite hymns. Like Hunter, Preston was on a ventilator. With the
electricity off, he gasped for air. It seemed to Carolyn that her
25-year-old son was choking to death.
How is my child going to survive? What are they going to do?
The day before, on Monday, Aug. 29, Hurricane Katrina had roared
through the city, snapping telephone poles, flipping cars, ripping off
the hospital's awnings and blowing out windows. When the power went
out, the hospital's backup generators kicked in. Now those were dead,
too, the switchgears drowned in water that had appeared out of nowhere.
The two mothers had feared for their sons more than they worried about
the storm. They'd met the week before in the sixth-floor waiting room
of the medical intensive care unit the day Hunter was admitted.
Carolyn, who had been there nearly a month with Preston, was a seasoned
hand at the routine of living in the waiting room of a hospital; Sherry
was the bewildered newcomer. They bonded quickly - two strangers
united by the struggle to save their sons, then bound forever by
Katrina.
It was not coincidence that brought Hunter Reeves and Preston Johnson
to Charity Hospital. The young men were among the 23 percent of
Louisiana adults lacking health insurance.
Charity was like Atlanta's Grady, Chicago's Cook County, New
York's Bellevue. One of the nation's oldest continuously operating
hospitals, it was a grand institution of an earlier era that rose
majestically 20 stories above the city. Like the Statue of Liberty, it
stood as a beacon for the poor and downtrodden.
For many in New Orleans, Charity was the only place they ever went for
medical treatment. They were born there, and they would die there. In
between, they relied on Charity's emergency room, where they trusted
they would get the best of care. A deeply revered place, the hospital
was a wormhole between the parallel universes of those who could afford
health care and those who could not.
Sitting diagonally across the street - and worlds apart - was
Tulane University Hospital and Clinic, owned by the Hospital
Corporation of America, or HCA. Built largely in 1976, the Tulane
hospital was a seven-floor sterile-looking conglomerate of brownish
brick buildings. No glorious art deco flourishes like those at Charity.
After Hurricane Katrina struck, the patients, staff and family members
inside Tulane were just as desperate as those inside Charity. But the
two hospitals could not have been more different. Tulane belonged to
the largest for-profit hospital chain in the country. Charity depended
on the state. One private. One public.
What happened to these two hospitals - and the hundreds of patients
like Hunter Reeves and Preston Johnson marooned inside - is a
metaphor for what happened to the city itself. The private hospital had
lifelines and outside resources, as did many New Orleanians who escaped
that week. The public hospital, an institution for the needy, had to
rely on the government for help and wound up stranded, as did so many
of New Orleans' poorest. For the sickest patients at Charity, the
government never arrived.
But the story of what unfolded inside Tulane and Charity is a tale not
just of what went wrong, but of all that went right.
It is a chronicle of human goodness and ingenuity. Faced with an
unprecedented loss of emergency power, medical professionals
frantically rigged up crude devices and used their own hands to pump
life into their patients. Stripped of the medical technology they had
come to rely on, they could offer only Third World health care. Yet the
result was a profound reconnection to the humanity of their patients.
Each was no longer just a diagnosis.
It is also the tale of a daring helicopter rescue, a clash of hospital
cultures, and a company that acted decisively and creatively, sparing
no expense to save its people and patients.
The rescue operation was not perfect. People died. But many more lived.
The perception of what happened depended on which side of the street
the viewer was on.
But one thing is indisputable: More people would have died had
individuals on both sides of Tulane Avenue not risked their own lives
to save them.
Post-9/11, and now post-Katrina, there are lessons to be learned for
when the next disaster strikes.
How had this happened? Sherry asked herself in the hot, dark hospital
room. And why?
Hunter had always been healthy, so full of life, a tall, thin
mischievous young man with wavy dirty-blond hair who had once dreamed
of going to college on a baseball scholarship. He'd been that good.
Now he was on life support.
At 53, Sherry was a small, thin, reserved woman with shoulder-length
blond hair and clear blue eyes that crinkled into slits when she
smiled. She'd learned her son was gravely ill only a few weeks
earlier. At first, she thought he had the flu. But when he coughed up
and urinated blood, his family had taken him to the hospital near
Sherry's home in Robert. There, he was diagnosed with a rare
autoimmune disorder called Goodpasture's syndrome.
On Thursday, Aug. 25, an ambulance had transported him across Lake
Pontchartrain to "Big Charity" - the large public hospital that
has served as a lifeline to generations of New Orleanians. Hunter had
no insurance, and it was there that he could get the treatment that
could save his life.
By Saturday, two days before the most destructive storm in U.S. history
would make landfall, Hunter was showing signs of improvement: His lungs
and urine were clearing of blood. The treatment was working. But soon
the unthinkable would happen.
Preston's illness puzzled doctors. They couldn't figure out what
was going on.
His mother thought he looked like a skeleton. He had always been
slender, with a strong, athletic build. Now even his nose was skinny
and pointed. His skin was yellow. He was on dialysis and couldn't
breathe on his own. But he was conscious. Sometimes when Carolyn
appeared by his bedside, he opened his arms for a hug.
He had been healthy, working and living in Houston with his girlfriend
when he became ill six months earlier. The cause wasn't clear, but
Carolyn suspected it was linked to a fight that broke out during a
pickup basketball game. Preston took a blow to the gut from a metal
pipe. When he didn't recover, he moved back home to Lake Charles in
southwest Louisiana to live with his mother and stepfather.
By then he was throwing up and losing weight. He refused to go to the
nearby hospital. But when he passed out one night in the bathtub and
nearly drowned, his family took him to the emergency room. Doctors said
his stomach was engorged with blood, his pancreas damaged. After nearly
three weeks, they recommended that Carolyn take her son to "Big
Charity" in New Orleans because it was a research and trauma center.
She believed the real reason was that Preston lacked insurance. He had
let the payments on his policy lapse.
The family couldn't afford to pay $4,000 for an ambulance, so they
laid Preston down in the front seat of their 9-year-old Lincoln
Continental for the three-hour drive. He was hallucinating by the time
they reached Charity.
Now Carolyn watched as her son wasted away.
Mama promises I'm not going to leave you, she assured him.
At 54, Carolyn was short, with a full face, brown eyes and a deep
religious faith. Every now and then, she walked to the other side of
the nurses' station to see Hunter. The medical intensive care unit
held only 11 beds - and some of the hospital's sickest patients.
Hunter was in an isolation room, a small beige cubicle with a
fluorescent light that no longer shone. She stood at the window looking
in and prayed for Hunter and his family.
Taking breaks in the waiting room, the mothers shared stories about
their sons. Sherry told Carolyn it seemed like yesterday that Hunter
was fine - playing golf with her husband, Hunter's stepdaddy.
Earlier, she had introduced Hunter's pregnant fiancée and told
Carolyn how excited she was to be expecting a new grandbaby.
Carolyn told Sherry about Preston's life in Houston and his two
little boys. She saw so much of her son in her two young grandsons,
Preston III and Jaden. Preston had a key chain with their pictures on
it. When the nurses changed his bed, they hung the chain from the lamp
overhead so he could see his boys, along with the wooden cross someone
had made him.
The women felt close, and Carolyn even thought to herself that it was
as if they were the same color. One black, one white, the two families
took care of each other. They brought one another food, water and
comfort. Carolyn told Sherry she was praying for Hunter. Sherry was
doing the same for Preston.
Both young men already had come close to dying. Now the storm, and the
power failure, threatened their survival. Their mothers would have to
wait and see.
In places all over New Orleans, Katrina was raising a question:
Who would live and who would die?
James Zachary
I left some interesting comments in at the end.
CHAPTER 2: TWO FORTRESSES AGAINST THE STORM
By Jane O. Hansen | Monday, May 8, 2006, 04:13 AM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New Orleans - The news stunned Susan Sanborn on Saturday morning:
Hurricane Katrina, on its way to becoming a catastrophic Category 5,
was hurtling toward her beloved city like a heat-seeking missile.
The professional dancer-turned-student nurse didn't consider
evacuating. She had totaled her car and used the insurance money to pay
for nursing school. Her only transportation was a bicycle. If Katrina
really did have New Orleans in its cross hairs, she figured her
workplace - the fortress of the venerable Charity Hospital - was
the safest place to be.
Like many hospitals, the building had served as a civil defense shelter
during the Cold War, and in its 60-plus years had sheltered patients
- among the city's poorest - through dozens of storms. No
emergency plan had ever called for a wholesale evacuation of the
20-story hospital. Charity remained open for business, come hell or
high water.
If hospital administrators called a code gray - the term used to
signal a weather emergency - Sanborn planned to be there. The
37-year-old Ohio native had volunteered for the activation team, which
would report to work with enough food and water to last three days.
They would tend to Charity's 347 patients in 12-hour shifts, and once
the emergency ended, a recovery team would relieve them.
By Saturday afternoon, the storm's path and intensity spurred
hospital administrators to activate the code, a decision that would
cost about half a million dollars in staffing and supplies. It would
take effect at 8 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 28.
Another nurse offered Sanborn a ride to work. She'd have too much
stuff to carry on her bike. Although this was Sanborn's first code
gray, she was in the company of experienced Charity staff, such as Dr.
Ben deBoisblanc.
Since coming to the hospital as a medical student 28 years earlier,
deBoisblanc had soldiered through a half-dozen code grays. A
passionate, emotional man with thinning reddish-blond hair, the New
Orleans native looked like the actor Ed Harris of "Right Stuff"
fame. At 50, he was director of the medical intensive care unit. Staff
and patients called him "Dr. Ben" - far easier than pronouncing
his French name.
Several months before the storm, his wife of 20 years had left him. He
was shocked; never even saw it coming. A sailor from childhood, he
moved out of their home in New Orleans and onto his boat, Creola,
moored at a marina on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain.
Before leaving Sunday morning for Charity, Dr. Ben prepared the boat as
well as he could, then grabbed his children's pictures and other
mementos. One prized possession was his only photo of his late father,
who had instilled in him his love for the water. His father had never
graduated from high school, and more than anything had wanted his son
to get a good education.
As he started to take the picture off the wall, Dr. Ben felt his
father's presence. Somehow, he believed, his father's spirit would
watch over Creola. He left the photo behind.
Over the years, with every major storm, Dr. Ben had heard the dire
predictions: With the right conditions, the storm surge would put this
bowl of a city that sits below sea level under water. Each time Charity
had braced itself, and each time the storms petered out or veered away
from the city. This time, Katrina promised something more.
As Dr. Ben reported for duty on Sunday morning, he told himself he'd
be on lockdown no more than a day or two. But he also couldn't help
thinking:
This could be the big one.
Three hundred fifty miles away in Houston, Sharif Omar collapsed in bed
after a Saturday night spent celebrating. Tall and slim, with bushy
black hair and long eyelashes, the young man was getting married the
next weekend in Virginia, and his bachelor's party had stretched past
midnight.
At 26, Sharif Omar - named for the star of the movie "Doctor
Zhivago," only in reverse - was associate vice president of
operations at Tulane Hospital, located across Tulane Avenue from
Charity. It was his job to ensure that there was plenty of food, water
and blood on hand. He also was in charge of transporting patients. It
was a big job under normal circumstances, and critical when a storm
threatened.
Before falling asleep, Omar checked the news: Still churning several
hundred miles away in the Gulf, Katrina was a Category 3. When he awoke
the next morning, it was a 5.
As traffic snaked out of New Orleans Sunday under a mandatory
evacuation ordered by Mayor Ray Nagin, Omar sped in the opposite
direction, sometimes topping 90 mph as police just watched. He arrived
in the city around 5 p.m., grabbed some clothes at his house, then
headed to the hospital. The hurricane's initial bands of wind and
rain were starting to blow in.
While other businesses boarded up their shops, the city's hospitals
prepared to hunker down and remain open. Critical patients could not be
safely moved without tremendous risk, especially those on ventilators
and other life-support equipment. The hospitals' emergency power
systems - gas- and diesel-fueled generators - would keep the
machines going if the city's power failed.
At Tulane, administrators made routine preparations, taking inventory
and deciding on staffing for their 178 patients. Owned by the Hospital
Corporation of America, the largest for-profit hospital chain in the
country, Tulane was one of four HCA hospitals in the path of Katrina.
All were the responsibility of Mel Lagarde, president of HCA's Delta
Division. Lagarde decided to base his command post at Tulane because it
was centrally located. From there he would help the hospitals secure
resources through the company's headquarters in Nashville. He too was
familiar with the decades-old models that predicted total devastation
if a big enough storm overwhelmed the city's levees. He had a
particularly bad feeling about Katrina.
Lagarde looked younger than 48, with a boyish face and dark hair parted
on the side. A graduate of the Tulane University School of Public
Health and Tropical Medicine, he had become a hospital CEO at 26, one
of the youngest in company history. He was division president by the
time he was 37. Like Dr. Ben, he was a New Orleans native. But after
more than two decades with HCA, he epitomized corporate culture; he
knew how to follow unspoken rules and respect the hierarchy, which he
himself had climbed quite high.
It was little surprise that he and Dr. Ben would eventually collide.
Sunday night, as the winds intensified, residents and nurses on the day
shift at Charity gathered in the on-call room on the 16th floor.
Off-duty, they cooked hot dogs, ate chips and dip, and played poker.
There was nothing they could do but try to relax, so most avoided
television coverage of the storm and played video games on the Xbox.
At about 3 Monday morning, both hospitals lost power and the emergency
generators kicked on.
Katrina made landfall at 6:10 a.m. with 125-mph winds. Palm trees were
uprooted; light poles broke in half; trees bent to the ground.
As the storm's eyewall passed through the city, the windows at Tulane
bowed inward. Staff moved patients out of their rooms and into the
hallways. Jim Montgomery, Tulane's president and CEO, looked across
the street and watched Charity's awnings rip free of the moorings and
fly away.
If God's ever angry, we're going to lose big, he thought.
The storm blew out windows on Charity's upper floors and destroyed
the roof over the operating rooms. Charity was so old that its ORs had
been built on the top floor of a 12-story wing, some say to take
advantage of sunlight.
Now the hospital was without an operating room, sterilization equipment
or critical laboratory equipment. Doctors and nurses could no longer do
blood or urine analyses or conduct other tests. They converted an
outpatient clinic on the second floor into a makeshift operating room.
On student nurse Sanborn's unit on the fourth floor, staff secured
sheets over the windows to protect patients from flying glass. They
couldn't see out, but they could hear debris bouncing off the roof.
They heard windows on the floors above them blow out and shatter on the
ground below.
In the sixth-floor medical intensive care unit, where Dr. Ben cared for
critically ill patients Hunter Reeves and Preston Johnson, water poured
through the ceiling, pulling down tiles and light fixtures.
Suddenly, the emergency power shut down in their wing. Medical staff
knew the drill: They ran to connect bags to ventilator patients -
including Hunter and Preston - and began squeezing them, manually
pumping air into their lungs. Later, the staff ran extension cords to a
Coke machine outlet in a wing that still had power. At least for now,
they were able to restart some ventilators.
Soon after the eye of the storm passed through, Dr. Ben's team mopped
up the inch-deep water. With power temporarily restored, calm settled
over the ICU.
At Tulane, Mel Lagarde surveyed the building. The hospital had suffered
minor roof damage and broken windows, but not much else. He turned his
attention to Garden Park Medical Center in Gulfport, Miss., the HCA
hospital that had sustained the most structural damage.
By midday on Monday, Aug. 29, the sun peeked through broken clouds, and
hospital employees poured out of their safe harbors to inspect the
surroundings. Sharif Omar and others walked five minutes away to the
Superdome, where parts of the roof were gone. The Hyatt Regency hotel
reminded them of the federal building in Oklahoma City after the
bombing, its face sheared off, curtains flapping in the breeze like
surrender flags.
The damage to the city was evident, but nothing close to the doomsday
scenario the models had predicted.
Many people said the same thing: New Orleans had dodged another bullet.
>From a walkway, Sanborn saw a homeless man curled under the steps of
the historic St. Joseph Catholic Church on Tulane Avenue. It struck
Sanborn that the church had somehow protected the sleeping man in the
storm, as if surrounding him with a magnetic field.
That night, the student nurse ducked outside to smoke a cigarette at
the bottom of Charity's emergency room ramp. Her hospital was on
emergency power, but the rest of the city was black and quiet. There
were no cars, and the stars shone like never before. Sanborn sat on a
bench and curled her feet beneath her. She figured the worst was behind
her. The recovery team would arrive in a couple of days, and she could
go home.
About 10:30, Sanborn stood up to go back inside. For the first time,
she noticed it: Where the ground had been dry, she stepped into water.
Where had this come from?
ON TUESDAY: The white noise falls silent - a frightening realization.
Chapter 3 of 22.
Comments
By MARY FINN
May 8, 2006 07:55 AM | Link to this
EXCELLENT FIRST TWO CHAPTERS. LOOKING FRWARD TO READING ENTIRE SERIES.
By Tamara
May 8, 2006 08:06 AM | Link to this
My heart goes out to everyone who went through Katrina. I've been
through a Level 5 Tornado so I can imagine what the hurricane was like.
And please don't get discourage when people (especially Republicans)
keep saying it's time for them to be on their feet... stop being
lazy. They have no idea what it's like to have to struggle to rebuild
from a devastating storm such as Katrina. Even though those who
complain about Katrina victims utilizing federal aid months after the
catastrophe need to go through a devastating storm just to understand
how difficult it is to have to totally rebuild, I don't wish this
type of enormous grief on anyone.
By Ellen
May 8, 2006 09:46 AM | Link to this
I worked with Dr. Ben when I lived and worked in New Orleans. He is a
dedicated physician and a true supporter of Charity Hospital and the
patients it served. I have already read his personal account of some of
what happened at Charity Hospital during Hurricane Katrina; and it made
me cry. I look forward to the rest of this series.
By Ed
May 8, 2006 10:03 AM | Link to this
It doesn't surprise me for an instant that the first reply to this
article throws blame on Republicans and, therefore, on President Bush.
New Orleans was not in any way prepared for what was coming and did not
plan. The city is well-known for the corruption and incompetence of its
government and this has been shown well by the actions and inactions of
Ray Nagin. The greatest examples are that he waited and waited to order
a mandatory evacuation and, when he finally did, it was too late.
Additionally, the city's school busses sat parked when they could
have been used to get the people who wound up at the Superdome and the
convention center out of harm's way. Government closest to the people
is the most effective, and New Orleans' government failed miserably.
It has been eight months since Katrina. Those people who are sitting
and waiting for others to do everything for them deserve no more.
By Linda
May 8, 2006 10:16 AM | Link to this
I was an RN at Ohio State University Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, years
ago so I know what it's like to have worked in a large hospital. I
have been lucky enough to have never been in a major hurricane or
disaster. This article brings me to tears just thinking about the
patients, their families and the agonies of their thoughts. I can feel
for the doctors and nurses who worked there and I KNOW that they all
did their utmost to take care of their patients. No one works in the
medical field unless they care. God Bless you all.
By Arleen Ristau
May 8, 2006 10:16 AM | Link to this
Congrats to Jane Hansen for a fantastic report, she should turn it into
a book. (I wish I had the last 20 chapters NOW!)
New Orleans has had my heart for many years, the people who live there
are very special! Maybe now the rest of the world will know WHY.
Thank you AJC for printing this article!
Arleen
By JP
May 8, 2006 10:47 AM | Link to this
Ed, you seem awfully defensive. The Republicans and right-wing radio
ARE the ones showing no understanding or compassion (remember
"compassionate conservative?") for Katrina victims. I thought
Tamara's comment was entirely accurate.
[But then you come here and see the devastation up close, and discover
that things are far worse than you imagined....Two weeks ago,
Douvillier [Fire Department captain] found two brothers in the same
house, casualties forgotten by time. And he believes there are many
more. A dog led one colleague to an attic in the Lower Ninth Ward that
contained a large, rotting fish, a sign that some of the remains may
simply have washed out to the Gulf....
Across St. Bernard you see houses that are collapsed like accordions.
You see holes in the roofs, where perhaps the residents escaped by
helicopter. You see seaweed clinging to other roofs and no water line
along the windows, which tells you that these entire blocks, this
entire neighborhood, was utterly submerged. And then there is the
unsettling quiet. There is no one for miles around - no traffic, no
children, no dogs.The front yards of these upscale houses are now piled
high with rubble, from slabs of plywood to mildewed rugs. Wherever you
look, normal life has been obliterated. How does journalism convey
that? How do you communicate that so many months later, vast swaths of
a major American city remain paralyzed?
But it is still news, if news is defined as a catastrophic event that
alters a community and a country forever. [Brian] Williams, dismissing
some viewer complaints and nasty e-mail saying that he devotes too much
air time to this city's struggles, stays on the case, as do a handful
of other television and print journalists.
That [rebuilding and moving on] is not possible in New Orleans. Yes,
many people are tired of the Katrina saga. In a world filled with
problems large and small, in a business that gravitates toward the
latest buzz, the up-to-the-minute news flash, that's easy to grasp.
If people saw what I saw, however, they would understand why
journalism's work here is not done - not by a long
shot.](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/05/AR2006050501744.html)
By JP
May 8, 2006 10:48 AM | Link to this
Ed, further: when you elect people to govern who don't LIKE
government, they usually don't do it very well. Case in point: the
Bush administration.
Prove me wrong, I dare you.
By Sheri
May 8, 2006 11:04 AM | Link to this
Escellent! If I had all 22 chapters I would not be able to put in down.
It should be made into a book.
By Thom
May 8, 2006 11:58 AM | Link to this
We hope to never see an incident such as this but it is inevitable to
happen. We have a government system that is tiered with one overlooking
the other. If one fails the other should pick up the ball. After
Katrina the government failed from bottom to top. We can't get over
this issue because we are spending too much time pointing fingers. I
don't care who was wrong and I could care less which party failed. It
is time for someone to make it right and help these people to recover.
The key word is PEOPLE. These are people who are in need. These are our
brothers and sisters crying out for a shoulder to lean on. As a nation
we need to be there for them. God Bless America!
By Janet Shrader
May 8, 2006 12:40 PM | Link to this
Reading this is like a gripping novel; leaving us at a cliff-hanger,
waiting until the next installment appears!
By Rick
May 8, 2006 01:59 PM | Link to this
You people are STILL blaming republicans...instead of questioning why
the busses were moved to the lowest part of the city, and the pump
operators sent home.... You REALLY need to smell what you are
shoveling. I wend down for 7 weeks and worked in the Lindy Boggs
(mercy) hospital recovery project. Row after row of busses are parked
just up the block, in neat rows with water lines on the sides...
Where have the BILLIONS of dollars sent to work on the levees, over the
last 20 years, gone???
Much of the pain of THIS disaster could have ben avoided except for the
extraordinary opportunity to play politics with Washington!
By Mel
May 8, 2006 02:44 PM | Link to this
Typical excuses. Blame Bush, blah, blah, blah, Oh, cry me a river....
N.O. Mayor Nagin and Gov. Blanco were and are still to blame the most.
He failed to act and she failed to secure enough Nat'l Guard troops
on hand (and no, they weren't all in Iraq either). The state didn't
want to foot the bill for it that's all! They both failed to act and
passed the buck. FEMA got that passed buck then then also failed too.
Hurricanes come and go all the time (See Florida), but it is up to
LOCAL First responders to get the job done FIRST! Did Bush 'fail'
during all previous Hurricains in 2005? No, because Florida had a plan
and followed it. N.O. is still a banana republic where cronyism not
competance is the way to go.
By rosalyn
May 8, 2006 04:26 PM | Link to this
I'm so glad Jane wrote this story I beleive that the world should
know what happened the good and the bad the NEWS only told the bad
things and showed the worst.what bothered me the most about are people
was when people started lieing and stealing from people that were
trying to help them and that what makes it hard to open your heart to
people because of trust.People will never forget katrina I think this
story should be put in a book right next to 911 to tragic days.My heart
goes out to the families who lost loved ones continue to stay strong.
By Patti Evans
May 8, 2006 05:56 PM | Link to this
Let's see the truth for what it is. There may be bad politics in LA.,
however the Corps of Engineers did a very poor job in building and
doing upkeep on the levees. Will they do anything about it? Or will
they rebuild the levees only to pre-Katrina and see history repeat
itself. I have no faith in the Corps to ever make New Orleans safe
enough for me to return. I have now seattled in GA
By Tammy in Niceville, FL
May 8, 2006 08:18 PM | Link to this
This is excellent work. It is written so that the intensity of the
situation comes out in the words. I find myself glued to my computer
screen. Keep it up!!
By Alyson
May 8, 2006 11:26 PM | Link to this
What a wonderfully written piece! I sit with great anticipation for the
coming chapters. I have a friend who's mother was stuck in Charity
for days, and now suffers from PTSD, this story brings me a little
closer to the hell that he has lived since that fateful day last
August. Keep the faith, Chris. The healing may take a while, but it
will get better with time.
By Ginny Kiernan Dahlberg
May 9, 2006 05:05 PM | Link to this
My brother, Michael Kiernan (a pulmonary neonatologist), was at the
head of the efforts to evacuate Tulane Hospital. With some engineers,
he worked out a helipad on the roof. When the last patient, family and
staff member had left, he was asked to remain and evacuate Charity; he
risked his life to do so - dodging sniper bullets with other staff to
get folks in Charity and nearby hotels over to Tulane and up to the
helipad. Not a single patient endured triage at the airport, or being
turned away - a bed was arranged for every patient before they left
Tulane. I've always been very proud of my brother - these days, I'm
even prouder!
By Kyle T
May 10, 2006 02:52 PM | Link to this
I think that this has been a a terrible mistake. Every body has been
blaming G. Bush. It doesn't mattter what he did. They had a chance to
evacuate and this could have been a nothing wrong if they had not done
it.
By Sharon
May 11, 2006 01:08 PM | Link to this
This reply is to Kyle.
There are no simplistic answers. Even if the buses of the school
system, a separate agency from the city with its own governance, were
made available and even though the traffic flowed in the same
direction, away from the city, and even though those without fiscal
means to leave were able, the resulting traffic jam would have given
rise to more human suffering. If you please, review the Houston exodus
for Hurricane Rita.
In addition, I can understand, (if I really stretch), the belief that
New Orleanians should have planned and acted accordingly.
However, I hope we don't repeat that statement if a devastating
earthquake hits San Franscisco or a tsunami attacks Los Angeles or
Seattle.(God forbid.)
Human suffering on any scale, at any time, in any place is human
suffering.
This is to Mel ( May 8th) I and many others have cried a river. Thank
you for letting me know that I can now give this deluge of grief to
you. As I stood before my mother's and father's home in the ninth
ward, where I and my siblings were taught the meaning and
responsinbilty of citizenship and the value of education and
self-reliance, where my World War II veteran father used the GI Bill to
realise the American dream, I sobbed.
I have seen people stand bewildered on television when a disaster
happened... I felt for them but i had no idea how it felt... I know
now.
I would not wish this on anyone. as the adage goes, "Before you judge
someone /something, walk in their/ the shoes."
This series is about the human spirit and its ability to survive.
Keep reading.
By Deyonca
May 16, 2006 11:34 PM | Link to this
First and foremost I would like to Thank all of you who have assisted
with the recovery efforts in New Orleans and to all of those who helped
many displaced residents start rebuilding their lives after the storm.
I am a New Orleans native and my family and I decided to evacuate
before the storm came ashore.
I am trying to understand why RTA(public transportation) and school
busses were not used to evacuate residents who were unable to leave. In
New Orleans, there's a law on the books stating that you cannot force
someone to leave their home. Our Mayor stated that residents were
responsible for each other not him and that we were supposed to take
care of one another. Well that would be difficult when many residents
did not have the transportation or the financial means to leave the
city.
The levees that were breeched by the London Avenue Canal were just
repaired within 9 months prior to the storm. I know this because I
lived less than 2 blocks away from this canal. Funding has been getting
cut for the upkeep of the levees for the past 3 years. Also, the levees
were not built to withstand category 3 winds.
I am not placing blame on any political party but somewhere down the
line, someone dropped the ball. Yes, Florida has been hit by hurricanes
over and over again and they have recovered. However, the major
difference between Florida and New Orleans is that New Orleans is below
sea level.
And as far as those who were affected by the storm needing to get up
off of their butts and not wait for anymore assistance from the
government Ed, we pay taxes too. And most of us who lost everything (my
house along with my mothers' was 15 feet under water)are still
waiting for some sort of compensation for our property.We are
struggling to pay bills here as well as New Orleans. So until you have
been in a natural disaster and lost everything, then and only then you
have the right to say what a person should and should not be doing.
James Zachary
CHAPTER 3: FROM CALM TO CALAMITY: PRAYERS FOR STRENGTH
By Jane O. Hansen | Tuesday, May 9, 2006, 04:18 AM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New Orleans - Mel Lagarde fell asleep on an office floor at Tulane
Hospital Monday night, lying on a quilt and using a pillow he had
brought from home. He closed his eyes feeling confident. The hospital
had absorbed the best punch nature could throw, in the words of a
colleague. Clearly, the doomsday models had been wrong.
In the middle of the night, a hospital executive shook Lagarde awake
with ominous news: Water surrounded the hospital, and it was rising at
an alarming rate.
He went down to the first-floor boiler room, where the hospital's
emergency generators were located. As Lagarde and his colleagues opened
the door leading out back to Cleveland Avenue, they could see the water
rising. It was inches from the top stair.
Lagarde knew it would be only a few hours before the water reached the
switchgears that ran the generators. For the first time in its history,
the hospital would lose backup power. And for the dozens of critically
ill patients hooked up to machines that breathed for them, pumped their
hearts, suctioned their lungs, or cleansed their blood, the loss of
electricity could mean imminent death.
Lagarde, a division president for Tulane's parent company, stepped
back and turned away from the others. He knew this was going to be
unlike anything he'd ever dealt with. On his own, he was not
physically or mentally prepared for what lay in store.
To maintain control of the situation, he would have to maintain control
of himself. Inside the hospital were more than 1,200 people -
patients, staff and family members who had joined them at the hospital
rather than flee the city. All would depend on him. He couldn't show
how nervous he was, how scared.
In the corner of the hallway, Lagarde silently prayed for the grace of
God to direct him.
Please give me the strength, the confidence, the courage and the
calmness.
Flooding forces Charity Hospital to use makeshift emergency room.
About the time Lagarde was roused from his sleep at Tulane, Dr. Ben
deBoisblanc snapped awake at Charity Hospital. The white noise of the
air conditioner had suddenly fallen silent. The hospital was black.
It was about 3 a.m. - the moment the switches for Charity's
generators slipped under water.
The flooded basement housed the morgue - where there were 10 bodies
that morning - as well as the cafeteria, radiation and oncology,
medical records and the generators' switchgears. As the water crept
up the stairwell toward the main floor, nurses frantically woke the
emergency medicine residents. The water's coming in! Everybody's
got to pack up and go.
They grabbed supplies from the first-floor emergency room and carried
them to the second-floor auditorium, where they set up a makeshift ER,
with gurneys, IV poles and a nurses' station. Next they moved up the
patients - more than 40 in all. Most could not walk, so they strapped
them to spine boards and, with the elevators dead and the halls dark,
carried them one by one up a partially enclosed outside staircase. They
laid the most seriously ill patients on the floor on sheets until they
could find mattresses.
Come daybreak, the auditorium's large windows would afford them
light. But even with the windows open, there would be little relief
from the sweltering heat.
The building facilities manager and his staff parceled out seven small
portable generators to the ER and critical care units. The generators
would run the lifesaving equipment - as long as there was fuel.
In the fourth-floor surgical intermediate care area, where student
nurse Susan Sanborn worked, three patients were being kept alive by
ventilators. With the loss of power, these machines ceased.
In normal conditions, when a patient on life support has to be moved
from one room to another, the ventilator is disconnected and an Ambu
bag is connected to the patient. A nurse squeezes the bag, manually
doing the work of the ventilator: forcing air from an oxygen tank into
the patient's lungs through an incision in the throat, called a
tracheotomy, or through the patient's mouth, using an endotracheal
tube.
"Hand-bagging" a patient is supposed to be a stopgap measure. It is
exhausting work. Few can do it more than a half-hour. Now nurses and
residents grabbed bags and got to work. They assumed it was only
temporary.
As a student nurse, Sanborn had little experience with the procedure.
She silently coached herself.
*OK, Susan, breathe, and match your breath with squeezing the bag.
Inhale, squeeze. Exhale, release.
Please don't die.*
Where was the water coming from? How high would it rise?
At Tulane, Lagarde wondered whether the sewers had backed up or whether
the pumps had failed. He wasn't thinking about a possible breach in
the levees. In all the disaster models he had seen, the worst scenario
depicted the storm surge topping the levees. But that would have
happened during the storm, not a day later.
They had to move quickly. Lagarde and Jim Montgomery, the hospital's
president and CEO, started calling City Hall, the governor's office,
the National Guard - anyone who could help. Someone will get back
with you, they were told. Or the lines were busy.
Finally, they reached their contact in the state emergency operations
center in Baton Rouge, the command post for a host of state and federal
agencies. Among them were the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the
National Guard and officials from the governor's office. The
region's hospitals also had representatives there, including Coletta
Barrett from the Louisiana Hospital Association.
Barrett told Lagarde and Montgomery that something drastic had
happened, but no one seemed to know what.
Do we need to evacuate? they asked. We have patients on vents.
Her reply was clear: Yes, they should try to evacuate. There was no
orchestrated plan to rescue them.
You're on your own.
At Charity, a different message filtered through the building: FEMA is
coming. Get your patients ready.
Physicians began triaging patients in their units to make sure the
sickest got out first. Using kits made for mass-casualty disasters,
they assigned a color-coded tag - red, yellow or green - to each
patient. A red tag marked the most critical; green the least.
For each, Dr. Ben and others wrote notes describing the patient's
condition and treatment. They placed these in a plastic bag and taped
it to the patient's arm or leg, along with a three-day supply of
medicine. They strapped patients to spine boards and waited for orders
to carry them down to the ER ramp.
The word that the federal government was on the way had come from Don
Smithburg, Charity's representative at the command post in Baton
Rouge. Chief executive officer of Louisiana State University's nine
hospitals, the state's largest health care system, Smithburg had been
alerted Saturday that New Orleans was "in the cone" - the path of
the hurricane. He was confident that the LSU hospitals, and
particularly "Big Charity," would get attention. Where else would
there be so many poor, sick, desperate people gathered in one place?
The sickest person on Sanborn's unit was a woman in her 50s with
mouth cancer and staples in her throat from a recent operation. She was
on life support, her vital signs deteriorating. A nerve disorder
complicated her condition, causing excruciating pain at the mere touch.
When the signal came to move her, Sanborn and five others tied her to a
chair and carried her and her oxygen tank down three floors,
hand-ventilating her as they went. It was too dark in the hospital to
see the stairs; they picked their way down the outside fire escape.
For two hours, they manually ventilated their patient on Charity's
emergency room ramp, trying to keep the conscious woman calm. Then they
were told the rescue boat wasn't coming. Looters and shooters made it
too dangerous.
Demoralized, they carried the woman back up the outside staircase. They
had failed to get even their most critical patient to safety.
This is wrong, Sanborn thought. You have to come get these people.
She didn't even know whom she was talking to. But she knew they
needed help from some higher power.
Please, come get my patients. I'm begging you, whoever you are,
please come get these people.
ON WEDNESDAY: Word of Tulane's crisis reaches executives of the
hospital's parent company in Nashville. Chapter 4 of 22.
Comments
By Alan Moore
May 9, 2006 06:24 AM | Link to this
Spectacular work! I'm really looking forward to the coming chapters.
By Michael Shard, RRT Charity Hospital
May 9, 2006 09:16 AM | Link to this
My name is Michael Shard, I was a respiratory therapist in New Orleans
at Charity hospital. I worked before, during ans afetr the storm, the
stories you see are not even half of what we experienced. I would love
to share my experience with anyone else who wants to E-mail me. I
currently am living in Atlanta and working at a local hospital. I
can't wait to see some of the pictures I experienced first hand with
my coworkers and patients!!
By Vicki Barron, RN, BSN, MEd
May 9, 2006 09:56 AM | Link to this
Dear Jane, This story is wonderful. I cannot imagine the amount of
research & work that went into writing it. I teach Healthcare Science
Technology Education at Randolph-Clay High School in Cuthbert, Georgia.
This is a 3-year program for students interested in going into a health
career. I have ALL of my students reading this series daily. Just think
what they will learn from this reading experience. Thank you, Vicki
By Linda Turnipseed
May 9, 2006 10:49 AM | Link to this
Mr Shard, I applaud you!! You and those you worked with are true heros.
As interesting as it may be, the story being told is not only tragic,
but shocking and heartbreaking. I would love to hear your story. Feel
free to email me at the listed address below. Thank you for your
efforts in the rescue of so many helpless individuals.
always,
Linda...
By Linda Turnipseed
May 9, 2006 11:31 AM | Link to this
Mr Shard my email address is turni...@fulton.k12.ga.us.
By Sherrianne Smith-White,MSN,RN
May 9, 2006 01:00 PM | Link to this
It is amazing that this event occured and that so many families have
been affected by it. I have so many co-workers, family members and
friends who were in the midst of this tragedy at Charity.To listen to
their account of the occurences makes me wonder. Were it not for a
change in job, I, along with my family and friends would have gone
through the same experience. I doubt very seriously if they will ever
recover from the traumatic event. Thanks for the coverage. It gives me
a greater appreciation for what we do as health professionals. Hats off
to all the nurses.
By Sharon
May 9, 2006 01:03 PM | Link to this
I would really like to hear from some nurses and more RTs who worked at
Charity during this event, since the story is short on their viewpoint.
Like most media stories, this story is physician-centered and gives the
impression that they and the hospital execs were doing all the
important work and decision making. I have never worked at a hospital
that worked like that.
By Sharon
May 9, 2006 01:04 PM | Link to this
I would like to add that I can see that there are 22 installments to
this saga so I am keeping an open mind and look forward to reading
more.
By Rick Mashburn
May 9, 2006 02:44 PM | Link to this
Excellent work. This is a gripping narrative.
By Chip
May 9, 2006 02:45 PM | Link to this
This story is so fascinating. I just got back from Jazzfest this past
weekend and while there did a little touring around the city. The
devestation of the town was mind boggling. I made a stop by Charity
while out and the sheer size of Charity and knowing what took place in
there was heartbreaking. My heartfelt sympathy goes out to all the
workers that tried to keep everyone alive and to get them to safety.
Mr. Shard my e-mail is tcc...@bellsouth.net
By Tess
May 9, 2006 04:06 PM | Link to this
To all of the hospital staff...Thank You!!! You are all heroes!!!! I
look forward to reading the next installment.
By Tammy in Niceville, FL
May 9, 2006 05:36 PM | Link to this
As a hospice nurse, I too am mandated to stay put during a disaster.
Though we are directed to keep ourselves safe until the situation
clears, we have to get to our patients immediately afterward. I know
what we deal with is rough, but these people endured hell. My hat goes
off to you all.
By JT
May 9, 2006 05:36 PM | Link to this
We should realize after reading this that we are truly blessed and
there is a GOD. This is a very good story . I hope it becomes a book.
By Brenda
May 9, 2006 07:38 PM | Link to this
Michael Shard, Thanks for all that you did and the lives that you tried
to save. Please email me I would like to talk to you.
By dawn
May 9, 2006 10:52 PM | Link to this
This is a timely piece, as most folks have moved on to the next big
story. This story is bringing people right back and refocusing our
attention and making us remember these Americans still need our
prayers. All of the survivors have a triumphant story to tell. I hope
you do another piece using the narratives of everyday people caught in
the storm. Then a series on the new norm for the survivors. Awesome
series, it grips me like my favorite show, "24". Since I wasn't
there, I anxiously await each installment. Keep up the good work.
By Linda
May 10, 2006 05:48 PM | Link to this
This is a wonderful story.....I'm sorry that it was real life! As a
nurse, I feel for all the patients and, even more so, for the nurses
and caregivers. It is heart breaking.
By gretchen
May 10, 2006 08:10 PM | Link to this
Michael, I would love to hear more of your stories. Feel free to email
me. Gretchen
By Sharon
May 11, 2006 01:43 PM | Link to this
This reads like a best selling novel... The fact that these events are
true makes this riveting..
By Kandies
May 15, 2006 03:11 PM | Link to this
i am really looking foward in reading the upcoming chapter i try to
read one or two chapter a day in my health care classes, Mrs.Barron.
one day i am going to become a medical assistant to help the community.
Thank you!!!!
James Zachary
CHAPTER 4: A DARING RESCUE PLAN -- BUT WILL IT WORK?
By Jane O. Hansen | Wednesday, May 10, 2006, 04:43 AM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Nashville - Jack Bovender immediately understood the enormity of the
situation at Tulane Hospital. The chairman and CEO of the nation's
largest for-profit hospital chain had just walked into the boardroom
Tuesday morning about 8 o'clock when Mel Lagarde called from New
Orleans, his voice filtering through the speaker system so all could
hear.
*The water is coming in.
*It was rising a foot an hour.
We're going to lose our backup power.
Among the executives gathered at the table, the sense of urgency
ratcheted up. CNN was broadcasting reports that the 17th Street levee
might have been breached. The update from Lagarde, a division
president, meant a new challenge.
Just the day before, Bovender and the others had been preoccupied with
the company's hospital in Gulfport, Miss. Of the Hospital Corporation
of America's four facilities in Katrina's path, it had sustained
the most wind damage from the hurricane.
Now Bovender was thinking: *The whole ballgame is going to
significantly change.
*Tulane had ventilator-dependent patients, babies in intensive care.
We've got to get the critically ill out of there as quickly as we
can.
Lives were at stake. With no power or water pressure, Tulane would need
to evacuate not just its critical care patients but the entire hospital
- more than 1,200 patients, staff and family members who'd taken
refuge there.
It was the direst situation the company had faced in its 37-year
history.
Located down a carpeted hall behind two huge wooden doors, the
boardroom at HCA headquarters was well-suited as a command post, with
its massive mahogany table, large flat-screen TV, computers and
sophisticated communications system. Bovender, who had spent three
years in the Navy's Medical Service Corps, would be the man in
charge.
Short, with gray hair and clear-rimmed glasses, the 60-year-old
Bovender became both chairman and CEO in 2002. He was at the helm when
HCA paid the last of nearly $1.7 billion to settle Medicare and
Medicaid fraud claims stemming from a nine-year investigation by the
U.S. Department of Justice.
Bovender had grown up around hospitals; his mother was a nurse. So was
his wife. He'd dreamed of being a hospital administrator since he was
a young man.
He had learned that the job involved a lot more than medicine and
money. HCA's facilities in Florida had taught Bovender that running a
hospital corporation also meant being prepared for disasters.
Four hurricanes had ripped through Florida in 2004, leading HCA to
convene its hospital leaders from around the country to bolster their
readiness for storms. They concluded that medicine, food, water, diesel
fuel and portable generators should be stockpiled on site and in nearby
warehouses. Hospitals needed to be armed with satellite phones to
ensure communication when phone service and cell service were
disrupted. Increased generator capacity would help preserve air
conditioning - critical to the operation of computers that run
lifesaving medical equipment.
By the time Katrina hit, HCA executives felt more than ready. But they
had prepared for a hurricane, not a flood.
Although the company often used medevacs to airlift critical patients,
HCA for the first time would have to evacuate an entire hospital. It
would need a lot of helicopters.
How many? Bovender asked.
*At least 20.
Get them.*
Bovender's team went to work, studying a color-coded map and
assessing all the corporation's assets in the region, from supplies
to hospitals.
The plan was to move Tulane's critically ill babies, children and
adults first. But it wasn't just a matter of getting sick people out.
They had to arrange for continued medical care. They had to line up
receiving hospitals.
Where would they take the patients? Where would they stage medical
personnel to assist in the evacuation? Where would they refuel the
helicopters?
Engineers studied Tulane's garage. Its rooftop hadn't been designed
to function as a helipad. Was there enough room to land there safely?
How many cars could it normally hold? Could it bear the weight of a
helicopter? How many?
Ed Jones, a vice president of supply chain operations, moved to a side
room off the command center where there was a phone. He called Chuck
Hall, president of HCA's North Florida Division in Tallahassee.
Although Katrina had merely brushed the state as a Category 1 storm the
week before, Hall's command center was still up and running.
*We need to identify as many helicopters as we can, *Jones told Hall.
They required a variety of types, from medevacs equipped as ambulances
that could carry one or two patients on stretchers, to those that could
carry ambulatory patients in seats. They needed large high-volume
helicopters for staff and their families, and ones that could carry
supplies.
With a cellphone in his left hand, a BlackBerry in his right and a
landline phone cradled on his neck, Jones leased helicopters from HCA
contractors as well as other companies.
A police department north of Chicago offered a helicopter used in Amber
Alerts, complete with a cop trained in night vision. An HCA competitor
- Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola, Fla. - volunteered a medevac.
Within hours, Jones and Hall had lined up choppers from Atlanta, St.
Louis, Chicago, Mobile, Houston, Pensacola and Ocala, Fla. They would
eventually secure 24 helicopters, including two privately owned Black
Hawks that could carry between 15 and 20 people and one Russian Mi-8.
Jones began hounding the Federal Aviation Administration for clearance
to fly the craft into New Orleans.
He would earn the nickname "Chopper Ed."
At Tulane, as water inched up the stairs toward the backup generators,
Lagarde and Jim Montgomery, the hospital's president and CEO, did not
sit back.
Soon after being awakened in the middle of the night, Montgomery had
called Acadian Ambulance Service, a company with air ambulance
helicopters based in Lafayette, La. He told them he needed to evacuate
13 critically ill infants, four critically ill children and 14
critically ill adults.
In the next four hours, atop the Saratoga Street parking garage
adjoining the hospital, the Tulane maintenance crew dismantled four
15-foot light poles to make way for helicopters. HCA had once sought
FAA approval to convert the rooftop into a helipad. But the hospital
had never gotten the go-ahead. No helicopter had ever landed there.
By the end of the day, both in Nashville and in Tulane's darkened
command center, the guiding principles were clear:
We're not going to wait for the government to rescue us. We have to
rely on ourselves. We won't take no for an answer.
Already, they were looking ahead to what they would do with the more
than 1,000 Tulane staff and their family members who had joined them at
the hospital before the storm. Many had lost their homes. Where would
they take them?
Bovender tossed out an idea.
What if we secured a cruise ship?
ON THURSDAY: At Charity Hospital, staff is reduced to practicing Third
World medicine. Chapter 5 of 22.
Comments
By Joe Camp
May 10, 2006 08:05 AM
Wow. This is quite a compelling story. As a corporate risk manager and
safety professional, I am intrigued by HCA's management of the
crisis.
All of us, whether in a private or public enterprise, need to BE
PREPARED. Think that YOU are not a risk manager? If you have family or
employees that depend on you, then you are. Don't wait until the next
tornado watch, power outage, or influenza pandemic to DO SOMETHING. Be
proactive NOW, so that you are ready. Tomorrow's very surival of
those you love may depend on what you do TODAY.
By Rhiannon
May 10, 2006 08:59 AM | Link to this
This is such an engaging story. Thank you for running the series.
I agree with Joe. Personal preparedness is everything. If you don't
know where to start, visit FEMA's www.ready.gov for supply kit
checklists and a step-by-step guide to creating your family's
emergency plan.
By Harmonie
May 10, 2006 09:55 AM | Link to this
This story is very touching. I am very intrigued by the courageousness
and determination of the medical staff. As a medical professional I
have heard stories about what went on in hospitals in New Orleans, but
reading this has made the devastation of this appear more real. I
thank- you all for taking the time out to give us this insight.
By living in fl
May 10, 2006 11:47 AM | Link to this
This piece is so compelling. I reside i Florida and have not felt the
full brunt of hurricanes. I actually lived across the street from a
hospital in St. Petersburg and they kept power when others were
without. This year I am living somewhere else that is surrounded by
lakes and ponds. I am thinking about a plan to keep my family safe and
what if we cannot go back home.
I am putting my info on a disk and email it to my personal email
account. Hopefully, if I had to leave the state, I would be able to get
to a computer and download the information.
By cheryl h.
May 10, 2006 11:51 AM | Link to this
Jane, thank you for doing the necessary research to publish this story.
I was in N. O. during the hurricane & I also had to be rescued from the
floodwaters. Therefore, I can definately relate to the deprivation that
the characters experienced. I am extremely excited and encouraged
because this story is being published! Our stories need to be told so
that the U.S. will be better prepared for its next great disaster! As
N. O. citizens waited for days to be rescued, I also kept a chronicled
journal of events that occurred & stories I collected from others along
the way as my father & I tried to flee the city. (I'm in the process
of getting them published also.) All of our stories need to be heard
because they celebrate the unsung heroes of Hurricane Katrina.
By Jane O. Hansen
May 10, 2006 12:23 PM | Link to this
I really appreciate your kind words. Thanks for reading and thanks for
your comments. I hope you continue to enjoy the series.
By Gina
May 10, 2006 04:56 PM | Link to this
Jane,
Thank you.
I am left with chills as I read this series. The city of New Orleans
has come to mean so much to me because of the people with which I have
met and formed lifelong relationships. Your story is a testament to
what makes this a truly unique and wonderful city - its people.
Again, thank you for letting their light shine through your words.
By Chip Young
May 10, 2006 05:01 PM | Link to this
You had done a great deal of research for this article,,,shows how some
were prepared and lots were not...I use to own the largest ambulance
service in Atlanta for years...Atlanta South,,had to downsize a lot and
sell the remaining service several years ago, because of no one wanting
to pay for services,,,typical health care in America,,this is why most
hospitals are in such trouble these days,,My hats off the the HCA
Hospital chiefs for using the helicopters, I use to have two of them
and they could save more lives than all the ambulances I ever had. One
other great help was from the folks from Arcadian Ambulance in
Louisana, They are one of the best and biggest private ambulances
services in the area. The CEO was on the FOX news several evenings
during the aftermath of the hurricane to explain what they were doing
to evacuate patients. He also brought up that his communications center
was up and running because he had the forsite of knowing the power and
other services would be out for weeks,,He used a radio system that did
not use computers to operate on like most government systems,,,way to
complicated when the power goes out, Where were the government services
during this disaster, under water like most other services...I really
liked the guy that stole the school bus and went back to his
neighborhood and got his neighbors and drove to Houston with them,,,now
that guy should have been in charge of FEMA,,,typical government
services that fail when really needed...I know from experience with
them too,,,by the way they came to my florida warehouse and bought
trucks, furniture , clothing and other things for the needy families in
New ORleans area, we gave them a good deal on everything, thinking we
were helping the victims,,,,well that was in October of last year,,,we
have yet to be paid, other airboat operators that went to New ORleans
to help rescue people off their rooftops have not been paid
either,,,just the other week a camper dealer near our offices had to go
out of business because FEMA never paid them for all the trailers they
came to buy. so look out if FEMA comes to buy anything from
you,,,run,,,,that is another story that you should look into,,,Billions
of dollars going out and they cannot pay us little guys....CHIP YOUNG
TYRONE GA
By Martha Peppers
May 10, 2006 05:54 PM | Link to this
Splendid work! You have done Mr. McGill proud.
By Tina Brewer
May 10, 2006 07:47 PM | Link to this
This is not a story about the past, with only blame left to assign.
There is still today many people in the "Zone" as they call it,
waiting for iunsurance checks, waiting for contractors, unemployed,
their jobs gone and their sanity at risk. There are people living in
hammocks in trees or sleeping in abandoned vehicles and moldy
buildings. They are many just paralyzed by all that has happened. Many
say they need to help themselves, and they do, but depression and
frustration has taken it's toll. I know this because I have relatives
who went there to work, to help, and they have sent me pictures and
told me what they have seen, IT'S NOT OVER YET. Many "refugees"
need psychological help, they don't know where or how to begin to
rebuild. Those who were already on "the check" (Soc Security,
Medicaid, Welfare, food stamps, etc.) and did not own anything have now
less than nothing, still looking for more public assistance, etc. It
has only worsened their public assitance dependence. And most
important: WHY REBUILD BELOW SEA LEVEL???????? This will happen again.
It just doesn't make sense. Galveston Tx was once a tourist mecca,
but they gave it up after a really serious hurricane. It's the same
as people building next to the Mississippi River: why should ourr
insurance go up to replace that which is sure to flood again and again?
Come on people, let's make sense and move away from flood plains, sea
walls, levees, dams, volcanos and other beautiful natural areas. THERE
WOULD BE NO DESTRUCTION IF PEOPLE HAD NOT BUILT THERE TO BEGIN WITH.
Sure, it's hard to leave your home, but can't you hear what Mother
Nature is telling you? Tax money (working citizens' money) should not
be wasted this way. Let's re-settle people away from these beautiful
areas that hold disaster for us bipeds. That would be money well-spent.
And let's don't forget that these people need not only food, clean
water, housing, and medical care. They need Post-Tramatic-Stress
counseling!
By Beverly Militello
May 11, 2006 01:45 AM | Link to this
Jane thank you for writing the struggle that was faced at these
hospital's. I'm a Critical Care RN in Atlanta. I actually took care
of patients that were med evaced out of the hospitals and the airport.
I have always gone though mass casulty drills, but when actually
confronted with patients with their mass casulty tags on, it takes on a
whole new prospective. I have also now had the pleasure and privilage
to work with displaced nurse's from New Orleans and have heard their
overwhelming stories of what they had to deal with. I don't know if
you heard, but unfortunatly Charity Hospital is now condemed due to the
damage it sustained, hopefully they will rebuild. That hospital was a
true life line for New Orleans Citizens.
By Tracie
May 11, 2006 10:09 PM | Link to this
Dear Tina Brewer, Obviously you are NOT a native New
Orleanian....please do not comment on whether or not we should rebuild
in New Orleans! My home was in St.Bernard Parish (100% devistation to
every structure), and we lost everything. You can not even imagine what
it is to try to pick up the pieces of what is left of your life, and
start all over. But wait....not just your life, every member of your
family has lost everything too. The life you once knew.....chatting
outside with neighbors in front the house, block parties, dinner by
Maw-Maw's every single Sunday.....it's gone. It's all just a
memory etched in your heart and mind. And help each other? All we can
do is offer love and support to each other because everyone is dealing
with cleaning the mud and mold from their own homes. And the very
personal belongings that I have kept for an entire lifetime are now
being shoveled out of the house with the mud and muck, and put out to
the curb as trash.....my valuables, things that were the most endearing
to me, are now laying out in the open for the world to see and the
trash truck to haul away. And having taken all that was familiar to me
in my life, now I should just relocate elsewhere? Start over, without
family, no friends, no job, no life-line? I don't think that you
realize that people who grow up in New Orleans never move far from
home. Home is where your family is. Are you proposing finding housing
and careers for ENTIRE families? Do you propose everyone should leave
California? Or Oklahoma? Or Tornado Alley? How about every other coast
line?
We are all still just trying to rebuild our lives, please don't judge
us on WHERE we do it.
By Tracie
May 11, 2006 11:19 PM | Link to this
Jane, As a person who has lost every single worldly possession in this
disaster, thank you for this heart-felt story. It's nice reading a
story without a "media spin", and speaks the plain truth....I have
shed so many tears already. To Tina Brewer, Don't be to hasty with
your "no rebuilding New Orleans" comments. This is my heritage and
my home, please do not question why it was even built in the first
place...it's insulting to me. I am from St.Bernard Parish, Louisiana
which experienced 100% devistation in this disaster. It was NOT THE
HURRICANE which destroyed us, but our very own government. It was the
corps of engineers who built those levees that failed us, and assured
us that they would protect us. The corps KNEW that the levees were in
shambles and were not being properly maintained. Hurricane Katrina did
not destroy New Orleans, as explained in this story, it was AFTER the
storm had passed, the NEXT DAY that the levees began failing. I was
born and raised in New Orleans,as was every single member of my family.
I have lost every single thing that I have worked my whole life for. I
can not begin to describe how it felt to gut my home that contained my
precious memoribilia, to shovel all my special momentos out with the
mud and muck and haul it to the street if it were trash. These things
that meant so much to me, now sit in plain view for all the world to
see, and wait to be hauled away as nothing more than garbage. My awards
and trophies, my brand new wedding dress, wedding gifts (we had just
gotten married), photos, every piece of my history. Things that can
never be replaced. But I will rebuild my life here, because home is
where your family is....your heritage....your friends....your memories,
because that is all that is left. As if my life has not been destroyed
enough already, should we start completely over in a strange place,
with no job, and no security? How do you propose to move generations of
families who know no other way of life? There are no
guarantees.....natural disasters happen in every state of this country.
Funny thing is, what happened to New Orleans was NOT a natural
disaster, it was a MAN-MADE FAILURE. Thanks for letting me comment.
By MCL
May 13, 2006 09:30 AM | Link to this
"Tax money should not be wasted this way (working citizen's
money)"???? This quote was taken from Tina Brewer's comments above.
First of all, is she implying that the people of the Gulf Coast were
not working citizens??? I can assure you Tina, I am a doctor and my
husband was a teacher, and we were both "working citizens,"
residing in New Orleans, and lost everything, homes, jobs, family
spread out all over the country We are talking about a major AMERICAN
city here, and you don't think we should rebuild it? But is it OK to
"waste" taxpayers money in Iraq, or is it OK to "waste"
taxpayers money to help big corporations to continuously line their
pockets by giving them huge tax cuts? Can't you find a million ways
taxpayers' money is misspent? But to help people in need who were
wronged by a government agency, you think this is a waste? Shame on you
Tina, and I hope in your lifetime you never have to go through a
similar thing.
James Zachary
CHAPTER 5: A FIGHT TO SURVIVE THIRD WORLD CONDITIONS
By Jane O. Hansen | Thursday, May 11, 2006, 04:23 AM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New Orleans - At Charity Hospital, even the walls were sweating.
By Tuesday afternoon, Aug. 30, it was over 100 degrees in some units.
The air was palpable, and the walls dripped with condensation.
Nursing student Susan Sanborn would cut off the pant legs of her maroon
scrubs and roll up the sleeves, exposing a tattoo on her right biceps
of a fish on an ocean wave. She apologized to her supervisor;
Charity's nursing school frowned on tattoos. The supervisor responded
with a look: You gotta be kidding. A rule about tattoos hardly mattered
now.
The hospital's backup power had shut off about 3 a.m., after the
levees broke and floodwaters drowned the generators' switchgears in
the basement. Already, conditions were deteriorating, inside the
hospital and out.
The lack of air conditioning threatened the lives of Sanborn's
patients in the surgical intermediate care area on the fourth floor.
Most had recently undergone surgery and were feverish. Nurses rubbed
their bodies with bath wipes stored in the still-cool refrigerator.
Toilets overflowed with solid and liquid waste. Administrators issued
5-gallon buckets and hazardous waste bags to use as commodes, but not
everyone got them. People went to the bathroom wherever they could -
in stairwells, cardboard boxes, garbage cans. A few came down with
gastrointestinal viruses. Baby wipes were as precious as cigarettes in
a prison.
At the same time the hospital lost backup power, the entire city was
losing water pressure. Soon, there would be no clean sheets or linens,
and no more water for bathing patients.
On top of the stench of human waste and body odor, the nauseating smell
of diesel fuel permeated the air on some floors. Tuesday afternoon, a
nurse on Sanborn's unit somehow powered up a portable generator by
using hair spray. Sanborn didn't understand the science, but it
worked. They moved the generator onto the fire escape outside, but the
fumes were still overpowering.
As if in combat, doctors, nurses, even family members of patients and
staff focused on one mission: to save lives. They manually ventilated
patients on life support until their hands were numb. They held water
to their parched lips to hydrate them. They spooned cold creamed corn
from plastic cups to nourish them. They fanned them with cafeteria
trays to cool them. And when there was nothing else they could do, they
held their hands to comfort them.
In this 20th-century medical facility, care was reduced to rudimentary
first aid or, as one doctor described it, worse than Third World
medicine.
Without power, they couldn't dialyze patients with kidney disease.
They couldn't suction the fluid from their lungs. They couldn't
take X-rays, EKGs or CT scans. They had no working labs for running
blood tests, monitoring heart function or conducting other diagnostic
tests. The best that doctors could do was examine their patients and
ask themselves, Do I see or hear something I shouldn't?
Two floors above Sanborn, in Room 11 of the medical intensive care
unit, Hunter Reeves' kidneys were shutting down. His fever was so
high, he was drenched in sweat. His mother, Sherry Hebert, was
terrified for her son. What if no one was coming to rescue him?
An ambulance had brought Hunter to Charity four days before the
hurricane hit. He had been diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease
that attacks the kidneys and lungs. But the treatment that could save
his life had ended. Blood reappeared in the tube to his bladder, he was
unconscious, and he could no longer breathe on his own.
When the backup power went out, his ventilator stopped working. Celeste
Waddell, a respiratory therapist, ran to his room and began manually
pumping air into his lungs to keep him alive. She was reluctant to let
anyone relieve her.
Even though Waddell felt powerless to give Hunter the medical treatment
he needed, she wanted to make him as comfortable as possible. She
rubbed him down with bottled water while Sherry fanned her 23-year-old
- her baby - with a piece of cardboard. Hunter's stepmother,
Cindy Reeves, was also there, doing what she could.
Dr. Ben deBoisblanc, the unit's director, was trying to find a way to
get Hunter's respirator going again. Portable generators were brought
in, but eventually those would run out of fuel. A respiratory therapist
used a hammer, a screwdriver and a piece of oxygen tubing to siphon
fuel from an ambulance on the ER ramp.
Sherry overheard Dr. Ben speaking to administrators. Hunter was
extremely critical. They had to get him out.
At 46, with smooth skin and big smiling brown eyes, Waddell spoke in a
soft, soothing voice. Her job was to monitor patients' ventilators to
make sure they received oxygen at the rate and volume the doctor
ordered. She suctioned endotracheal tubes to clear airways.
Before the storm, she made a point of regularly stopping by bay No. 4
to see Preston Johnson, even on days when another respiratory therapist
was assigned to his care. She wanted to check on his mother, Carolyn
Lewis, who often seemed overwhelmed. The woman's 25-year-old son
remained in a fight for his life.
Carolyn and her husband had brought Preston to Charity the month
before. But he wasn't getting better, and at times he worsened. His
skin turned yellow from liver failure; his kidneys failed, requiring
dialysis. When he began to bleed internally, they poured blood into
him. He remained on a ventilator, but doctors had not yet settled on a
definitive diagnosis.
Most of the time, Preston remained conscious. His mother rarely left
his side.
Good morning, Waddell would say to Carolyn. How are you doing? Are you
hanging in there?
Waddell was more than a kind professional with nearly 22 years of
experience dealing with patients and families. When she tended to
Preston or Hunter, she couldn't help but think of what had happened
to her own son.
Around her neck, she wore a gold cross he had given her and a necklace
with three gold charms: a little boy, a football helmet and the words,
"No. 1 Mom."
On Tuesday, fires erupted sporadically around downtown. Looters broke
windows along Tulane Avenue. With little communication from the outside
world, rumors ran rampant inside Charity: Gangs are roaming the streets
and trying to break into the hospitals with guns.
The water that surrounded the hospital and entrapped them was now
contaminated with gasoline and oil. Sanborn watched from a fourth-floor
window as people carrying children on their shoulders waded through
chest-deep water to the emergency room ramp, pleading for shelter. The
hospital's armed security guards pointed them instead toward the
Superdome a couple of blocks away. The student nurse felt devastated.
Charity had always seemed invincible, the last resort for those in
need. Now it was turning people away.
Charity is such a poor old thing, Sanborn thought, long neglected by
the Louisiana Legislature.
During eight of the past 10 years, lawmakers had appropriated no new
funds for the state's public hospitals. As a result, Charity had been
forced to reduce services and take in fewer patients, despite waiting
lists. In 2005, a report by a national hospital accrediting body said
Charity's trauma treatment area was so crowded and cramped, it was
"a disgrace for a modern Level 1 trauma center in a major
metropolitan area with two major medical schools."
Dr. Granville Morse, an emergency medicine resident, shared Sanborn's
anguish. He was on the ER ramp when a National Guard truck drove up.
Lying in the open bed of the truck were six critically ill patients,
all with tracheotomies, all being hand-ventilated by National Guard
members who stared back at the doctor, terrified.
A young idealistic physician with dark hair, dark eyes and a round
boyish face, Morse had volunteered to be on the hospital's activation
team when it appeared the approaching storm would trigger a code gray
- a weather-related emergency. The Atlanta native had helped evacuate
his wife and two young children before reporting for duty. But he
hadn't expected this.
The driver of the truck said the patients were from a nursing home and
had been taken to a hospital just before the storm. But that hospital
had lost its power and run out of oxygen. Its staff had flagged down
the truck and told the driver, Take them to Charity.
None of the six could talk, and none had pinned to them any medical
information. One was a little boy about 8 who was alone and had a
feeding tube in his stomach.
Look, we don't have any power; there's no way we can care for these
patients, Morse and a staff physician told them. There's nothing we
can do.
Surely some of the private hospitals must be in better shape, they
thought. They assumed their facility was the most incapacitated, that
the patients would get better care elsewhere. They told the driver to
head for Memorial Medical Center.
It was a difficult decision for the young Charity resident. Others on
the ramp expressed outrage. A veteran respiratory therapist called it
inhumane to send people in need of medical care back into the streets.
It's counterintuitive to what we do.
As the truck drove away, emotions were running high. Four hours later,
the truck returned. Morse, just shy of his 34th birthday, felt awful
when he learned that one hospital after another had turned the patients
away. This time, Charity took them in.
Sherry Hebert left her son's bedside and went down to the emergency
room ramp to smoke. She noticed for the first time the water in the
streets. She'd been thinking of nothing but Hunter.
Maybe it's from the rain, she remarked to the father of another
patient.
No, it's rising, he said. He laid some leaves on the dry part of the
ramp. Soon they were floating.
Inside the hospital, an internal struggle was developing. Younger
surgical physicians wanted to consolidate critically ill patients -
spread over four floors in different intensive care units - onto one
floor where doctors and nurses could care for them more efficiently. A
committee of administrators, appointed before the storm by the
hospital's CEO, resisted. They believed the government would arrive
any minute.
Many inside Charity began to question whether there even was a rescue
plan - or who was at the helm. Dwayne Thomas, the CEO of Charity and
its affiliate, University Hospital, was trapped five blocks away, at
University. The administrators he had put in charge had trouble
reaching him. They held daily staff meetings in the lobby, but staff on
the front lines were spread throughout the huge building, and many
heard little - or nothing - of the meetings.
Impatience grew with each false promise that the government was on the
way. One surgery resident, who had been told that FEMA, the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, was coming, carried a patient on his back
down seven floors. Nobody came.
Hunter's mother was outside when someone did show up. Before the
water got too high on Tuesday, Mayor Ray Nagin drove onto the ramp in a
black SUV. A number of people were there, including a news crew. Sherry
inched her way through the crowd.
When are we going to get help? she asked the mayor.
She was crying as she told him her son would die if he didn't get out
soon.
The mayor held Sherry's hand.
Just that morning, he told her, he had called the federal government.
Help was on the way, he assured her. The National Guard would be there
that very day.
ON FRIDAY: At Tulane Hospital, a rescue mission begins. Will the
rooftop hold? Chapter 6 of 22.
Comments
By Gene
May 11, 2006 08:43 AM | Link to this
Jane, I got your email saying the series had started. Excellent so far
- you've done a good job of bringing me to tears again. This is the
most I've been able to learn about the whole scenario so far,
especially the parts that happened before we got there. This whole
episode is definitely a story that needs to be told...and learned from.
By
May 11, 2006 11:12 AM | Link to this
Jane - Many thanks for presenting this story to the public. In the
months following Katrina, I was incensed at the news shows alleging
euthanasia and dereliction of duty at Charity. I knew these allegations
to be patently false, and was amazed at the irresponsible and
groundless speculation being presented to the public essentially as
fact.
You see, I was an attending physician on call at both Charity and
University hospitals during the storm (I ended up having to stay at
University, as that was the location of our inpatient ward). And what I
witnessed and experienced was a committed group of caring professionals
that never took the focus off of the welfare of patients. My residents,
interns, nurses, and colleagues toiled under very difficult conditions
with one unifying goal - patient care. Even as we were hearing of
lawlessness, mass rape, and armed gangs attacking hospitals to try to
procure drugs, every member of the team focused on the job at hand.
On Friday, as we were finally getting some of our patients evacuated,
one of the patients had a cardiac arrest on the roof while we were
waiting for a Blackhawk helicopter. Without missing a beat, every
professional on that roof performed the code with absolute
concentration (even when the Blackhawk landed in the middle of it).
That event was emblematic of the caring and professionalism that was
displayed at University, Charity, Tulane, and the VA throughout the
experience. I could not be more proud of the way my colleagues and
residents performed under very difficult conditions. Whether it was
placing central venous lines with only a flashlight as a guide, or
searching the bowels of the hospital for any possible useful supplies,
the group with which I was so honored to work performed admirably.
Again, thank you for sharing just a little bit of the story.
Now if we could just get the news shows to proclaim the heroism and
professionalism of my colleagues with the same vehemence that the media
previously displayed when impugning their character...
By Marcus Wallace, MD
May 11, 2006 12:49 PM | Link to this
As a physician who trained in Internal Medicine at Charity under Dr.
Ben deBoisblanc I would like to say thank you. Thank you to all the
medical staff/ heroes who stood by their patients and did everything
they could when they could have just given up. Thank you for giving
medicine a good name in light of all the negativity that currently
surrounds the field.
It was hard to watch my colleagues on CNN asking for assistance but
none coming there way for days on end. To this day I feel I should have
been at that hospital in some fashion to help those patients and staff
who worked courageously for hours on end. I had the opportunity to take
care of patients flown to the DC Armory in Washington, DC three days
after Katrina and experience first hand what my colleagues had been
treating since the hurricane had passed. It /is/was a humbling
experience I will never forget.
By Jane O. Hansen
May 11, 2006 01:20 PM | Link to this
Thanks so much for your comments. I hope you enjoy the rest of the
series.
By DWS
May 11, 2006 02:14 PM | Link to this
Talk about coincidences. Marcus and I both trained under Dr DeBoisblanc
at the same time, and I'd like to echo his sentiments. There is no
finer or more compassionate physician that I have ever met.
Marcus, tough time for your Terps, eh? (my guess is that you know who
this is):)
By the way, I was the unnamed person that posted right before yours.
Hope all is well.
By paula henderson
May 11, 2006 03:54 PM | Link to this
These are amazing people, who should be praised to the highness for
their work during and after Katrina. I could not complete the article
because of the tears that was coming in my eyes. This was a sad
situation and the nurses, doctors and hopsital staff hung in there with
there patients. God Bless the staff of Charity Hospital.
By Nicole
May 11, 2006 04:13 PM | Link to this
I have not read the entire series to date, however what I have read has
left me speechless. The care that was provided to these patients and
their families during this time was I'm sure something they will
never forget. As an employee of the VA in Atlanta, GA I was not as
fortunate as some of my other co-workers to be able to assist with
those flown into Dobbins Air Force Base. But the job that was carried
out both here in Atlanta and there in New Orleans was both an
eye-opener and an experience that for many will not be forgotten. Good
job on the series, and as previously stated, thank you to all those who
stood their ground and thought about others and not of themselves in
one of the most disastrous hours in American history. It is great to
see that someone in the media is able to give the true story of what
actually happened. THANK YOU!
By Lindsey
May 11, 2006 07:33 PM | Link to this
Jane, I would like to thank you for putting this story together. I am a
New Orleanian and displaced employee of Tulane Hospital and Clinic.
Although I did not work inside of the hospital, but a outside clinic
located in Uptown New Orleans I feel that the workers in that hospital
were my colleuges and the patients were in some part my patients. This
brings to life how hard it was to give the medical treatment Charity
and Tulane or known to give. (In New Orleans they were known as the
best)
My cousin was also a worker at Charity and had volunteered to stay
behind. I have heard some of the stories from him about the conditions
and it all sounds to horrible. Your narrative has brought back a lot of
the emotion I felt when I heard his story and I just wanted to thank
you for giving a voice to the unheard hereos of Katrina.
By Dawn
May 11, 2006 11:02 PM | Link to this
Do we honestly believe all of the horrible conditions that existed
before the storm at Charity will be corrected? What if something like
this happened in Atlanta? Can we see this type of third world medicine
being used at Grady. They already lack the funds to operate even on a
subpar level. The people do the best they can to serve the public, but
everyone who could make a difference should be ashamed because they
have not. We have enough privately wealthy individuals in this city and
the outlying suburbs to not only finanace this needed institution, but
make it a top notch service center. If you have an infected tooth in
need of repair but lack insurance (at the time) you should not have to
wait a year for an appointment to get it removed. Thank God for the
heroes in all underfunded service centers who fight daily to deliver
the most humane treatment in the most inhumane of circumstances.
By Rosemarie de la Tour Bruskotter, RN
May 12, 2006 12:20 AM | Link to this
As a critical care nurse who worked with Celeste, Dr. Ben, Dr. Peter
deBlieux (whom I assume you will be writing about) and many others such
as Patty Clesi, RN and Lisa King, RN for 10 years in SICA and MICU, I
can honestly say how devoted, caring and loving they are. Each day of
their nightmare, I would call MICU and speak to Lisa, Celeste or Patty
for updates of the situation and to express my love and respect for
what they were trying to do. Amazingly, the unit phone worked! I know
how difficult it is to continually ambu bag a patient on a ventilator
and am in awe of how Celeste and my former peers were able to withstand
the painfully numbing effect of doing so. And that was only one of many
huge feats they were to overcome.
Like Dr. Wallace's prior post, I feel like I should have been there
to help the patients and staff. Being in California I felt useless, and
hoped in some tiny way, my love and communication would help them
through their hellish ordeal. I am humbled also, but feel blessed to
have worked with such quiet heroes.
Your excellent series Through Hell and High Water is making me relive
that time with stressful clarity but more importantly, it will shed a
beautiful light on some of the wonderful people who deserve this
recognition and honor. They are role models to all health care
providers and students.
By Stephen Mitchell
May 16, 2006 06:31 PM | Link to this
Jane, This is a great article. Riveting and tragic. I grew up in New
Orleans and my father worked at Tulane Medical School. It is amazing
what memories of that hospital are coming back 15 years after he died.
I did have one question. I think I went to high school with Granville
Morse in New Orleans, yet you call him an Atlanta native. Could this be
the case?
And keep up the good work. I can't stop reading it.
James Zachary
CHAPTER 6: ROOFTOP DRAMA AS COPTERS HAZARD RESCUE
By Jane O. Hansen | Friday, May 12, 2006, 04:43 AM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New Orleans - Sharif Omar normally spent his days darting about
Tulane Hospital armed with a walkie-talkie and cellphone as he directed
the transporting of patients and oversaw food service and laboratory
operations. On Tuesday, Aug. 30, the hospital administrator was ordered
to the rooftop to do whatever one does to help a helicopter land.
The sun had barely come up when Omar walked across the enclosed bridge
from Tulane to the Saratoga Street parking garage and went up to the
roof. The hospital had lost emergency power and was surrounded by
water. Patients' survival depended on getting airlifted out.
Maintenance staff had worked through the night to reconfigure the
rooftop into a helipad by removing light fixtures. In Nashville, at the
hospital's corporate headquarters, design and construction staff had
tried to calculate whether the roof would support the aircraft. But
Omar knew there were no guarantees.
Alone on the roof, he didn't have to wait long before spotting the
first helicopter from Acadian Ambulance Service flying toward him. He
watched it maneuver through city buildings.
As the helicopter made its approach, Omar wasn't sure how to help; he
had no way to communicate with the pilot.
He literally held his breath.
Staff at Tulane had moved their most critical patients onto one floor
in anticipation of Hurricane Katrina so they could be cared for more
efficiently. At Charity Hospital, critical patients remained spread
over four floors.
Tulane established clear lines of authority: The president of the
hospital, Jim Montgomery, and Mel Lagarde, a division president for the
Hospital Corporation of America, were in charge. At Charity, where a
committee was at the helm, the chain of command was fuzzy.
At the private hospital, Tulane administrators were equipped with six
to eight satellite phones. They had established a command center in a
second-floor conference room, where they had miraculously found two
working landlines. At Charity, the public hospital depended on
irregular cellphone service and a single satellite phone that worked
sporadically.
Tulane's corporate owner, HCA, had learned the lessons of 9/11 -
the need for a command and control structure and a reliable means of
communication. Tulane had both. And it had something else Charity
lacked: hope.
Montgomery and Lagarde were in constant communication with company
headquarters in Nashville. They knew the corporation was mobilizing a
rescue operation. As a wealthy company with 180 hospitals, HCA could
draw on a cavalry of resources.
The two men also walked the halls of Tulane, keeping patients and their
families informed. They held regular meetings with managers and
separate meetings with physicians.
They maintained order, and they maintained calm. In the boardroom in
Nashville, the sound of Lagarde's quiet confidence over the
loudspeaker helped executives keep their own emotions in check.
Up on the parking garage roof, the first helicopter landed and the
rooftop held, to everyone's relief. Tulane's rescue had officially
begun.
Staff had begun moving critically ill patients to the second-floor
bridge to the parking garage, then to a holding area on the garage's
second floor. From there, they planned to drive patients by ambulance
up six floors to the roof. When the ambulances wouldn't go up the
garage ramps - they were 2 inches too tall - they used pickup
trucks instead.
First to be evacuated were 13 newborns from the neonatal intensive care
unit and four children from the pediatric intensive care unit. Five of
the 17 were on ventilators. Texas Children's Hospital in Houston had
agreed to take them. Montgomery watched as staff loaded the tiny babies
on board.
Good God, he thought, how many of these people might not make it?
Hour after hour, helicopters landed and took the hospital's most
critical patients safely away, one or two at a time. The security in
the city, meanwhile, was breaking down.
>From the rooftop, dozens of people could be seen wading down Tulane
Avenue carrying goods stolen from nearby stores. Looters took over the
hotel next door where employees' families had sought refuge during
the storm, forcing them to move into the hospital.
But by late Tuesday afternoon, all except two of Tulane's most
critical patients had been evacuated. The two who remained were
awaiting heart transplants.
One was a 15-year-old boy on a heart machine that was being powered by
a portable generator. Once disconnected, the machine could be
hand-cranked, but only for 30 minutes. So the boy could not be moved to
the second-floor staging area until a helicopter arrived. And that
copter had to be specially fitted with a battery system to keep the
machine going. The Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock
arranged to send the special aircraft.
As it grew dark, gunfire erupted on the streets below. Exercising
caution, the Tulane command center agreed with Acadian Ambulance
Service that it should halt its nighttime evacuation.
Omar sent all but one other person off the roof. He was still expecting
the helicopter from Arkansas. He sat waiting in darkness.
Suddenly, a helicopter circled above. Jumping up, he wondered what he
should do with the flashlight in his hand. This was the first chopper
he would bring in at night. Should he point the light at the ground? At
the helicopter?
At first he shone the light into the air. But he worried he might blind
the pilot. So he trained it at the ground.
As the helicopter landed, Omar radioed on his walkie-talkie, Move the
patient!
On the fourth floor of the hospital, 20 people began the arduous task
of carrying the 15-year-old - and the 500-pound machine keeping him
alive - down the stairs by flashlight. They had 30 minutes to get him
down the stairs, across the bridge, onto the truck, up to the roof,
onto the helicopter and hooked up to the battery.
They made it in time, and the boy lifted off. It was no small success.
In 18 hours' time, Tulane had evacuated all but one of the
hospital's 31 sickest patients. Across the street at Charity, where
staff had been told the government was on its way, they were still
waiting.
About 2 Wednesday morning, Omar lay down to sleep on the floor of his
office. He was hot and exhausted but relieved.
So far, at least, no one had died.
ON SATURDAY: New scrubs, flip-flops and a Cajun meal - a
comprehensive rescue and relief plan takes shape at HCA headquarters in
Nashville. Chapter 7 of 22.
Comments
By Amy Hughes
May 12, 2006 09:28 AM | Link to this
Thank you for reporting this story. It is excellent.
By Chris Hutcherson
May 12, 2006 10:02 AM | Link to this
Wonderful series! I was born and raised in the suburbs then moved away
7 years ago but my heart as well as family members remained there. God
bless all of those folks who gave so much of themselves trying to do
whatever they could to keep the sickest and poorest citizens of the Big
Easy alive.
By Tess
May 12, 2006 11:40 AM | Link to this
I am so enjoying this article. And I'm looking forward to the next
chapter! The people in these stories are all heroes!!! And I'm glad
someone is finally telling their story. Keep up the good work!!!
By Erin Gonzalez
May 12, 2006 01:07 PM | Link to this
It was all like a dream. My family was fortunate to evacuate and seeing
the televised accounts were heart-wrenching. I am thankful for your
writings because it gives insight to what really happened. God Bless
everyone who gave so much of themselves to help others in need.
James Zachary
CHAPTER 7: RESCUE PLAN FROM A TO Z
By Jane O. Hansen | Friday, May 12, 2006, 01:12 PM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Nashville - Within hours after the levees broke in New Orleans,
executives of the nation's largest for-profit hospital chain were
thinking ahead: What would they do with their stranded employees after
airlifting them to safety?
A risky helicopter rescue of Tulane Hospital's most critical patients
was well under way on the roof of a parking garage. But more than 1,000
doctors, nurses, employees and family members were also imprisoned by
the floodwaters that surrounded the hospital and rushed inside,
drowning the emergency generators. The Hospital Corporation of America
would act decisively, not waiting for - or even expecting -
government help.
>From its hushed, cushiony boardroom, the company early Tuesday launched
a sweeping plan that would later be regarded as a textbook example of
disaster response. Jack Bovender, the CEO and the son and husband of
nurses, led his team of executives, each of whom had years of
experience in health care administration.
First, their evacuated employees would need to be decontaminated, fed
and given clothes and a cot to sleep on. HCA set up three shelters 135
miles west in Lafayette, La., at a dance studio, a banquet hall and a
catering center. The company ordered pharmaceuticals and supplies, and
called upon its army of employees from around the country to assist in
the relief effort.
Each employee would receive a tetanus shot and a six-day supply of the
antibiotic Cipro to stave off cholera and other bacterial infections.
New underwear, scrubs, flip-flops, toiletries and towels would be
issued. Employees would receive information about how to get their
paycheck, relief assistance, federal disaster benefits and cash. The
plan was so comprehensive that HCA even arranged to have tampons and
children's toys available for any employee who wanted them.
The company would use private aircraft to fly in dozens of nurses and
staff from other HCA facilities. Through its temporary staffing agency,
170 nurses stood by, ready to be deployed from nine U.S. cities. Staff
organized volunteers in Lafayette to cook a down-home Cajun meal of
jambalaya for the weary evacuees' first night of freedom.
Knowing that many employees would have lost their homes to Hurricane
Katrina and the flooding, Bovender had floated the idea of housing them
in a chartered cruise ship. When the CEO of the Hospital Corporation of
America speaks, a hierarchy of willing officials listens. But in no
time Tuesday they nixed the notion. They would later laugh when
Bovender himself summed up the findings of their cost analysis: It
would be cheaper to fly everyone to Chicago and put them up at the
Ritz-Carlton.
The federal government, on the other hand, would embrace the idea.
While desperate New Orleanians still clung to their rooftops, the
Federal Emergency Management Agency signed a six-month, $236 million
contract with Carnival Cruise Lines for three ships to house evacuees.
Critics in Congress later lambasted the decision, calling it a
"sweetheart deal" for the cruise line. Even with the ships at full
capacity, the cost to taxpayers would have been $1,275 a week to house
each evacuee. The ships, however, would never become as popular as the
government envisioned. By the end of September, they were only half
full, according to two U.S. senators. Apparently people who had lost
everything to the water didn't want to go live on it.
Instead of a ship, on Tuesday afternoon, HCA reserved 1,500 hotel rooms
in Atlanta, Houston, Orlando, Nashville and Dallas. It chartered two
727 jetliners to fly to Atlanta and Houston. It would purchase 200
one-way tickets to get people from there to the destinations of their
choice.
Throughout the elaborate preparations, Mel Lagarde, the executive in
charge inside Tulane, remained in constant touch with headquarters in
Nashville. His cool, calm voice over the speakerphone inspired the HCA
executives; their regular updates from Nashville in turn gave Lagarde
confidence and hope.
By late Tuesday afternoon, all but two of the hospital's 31 most
critical patients were en route to hospitals in Houston; Pensacola,
Fla.; and Lafayette, Covington and Alexandria, La. Still, Sam Hazen,
president of HCA's Western Group, was worried. Most of the
helicopters in use were designed to take only one to five passengers at
a time. The flights to Lafayette and Pensacola, where many of the
critical patients had been taken, took as long as four hours round
trip.
Hazen did the math. We need to turn over these helicopters faster, he
said.
The Louis Armstrong International Airport was only an eight-minute
helicopter ride away, less than 20 minutes round trip. What if they
turned the airport, closed to regular traffic, into a staging area? HCA
already had a relationship with the company that operated one of the
private hangars. The helicopters could refuel there and load up with
food, water and other supplies for the return trip to Tulane. They
could drop their employees at the airport, then bus them to the
shelters in Lafayette.
The plan would go into effect the next morning, Wednesday, Aug. 31.
That day, another turning point would come with the arrival on the roof
of someone who understood helicopters, human behavior and
life-and-death situations.
The HCA executives didn't even know it yet, but their rescue
operation was in desperate need of "The Man."
ON SUNDAY: At Charity Hospital, a student nurse tends to two mystery
patients. Chapter 8 of 22.
Comments
By Harmonie
May 12, 2006 02:15 PM | Link to this
This series, by far is the best I have read in a long time. I can
hardly wait for the next chapter to come out. I rush to work a few
minutes early every morning since it started to read the next chapter.
I am speechless all I can say is WOW!!!
By Jeannie
May 12, 2006 02:26 PM | Link to this
I just realized that I physically tense up and hold my breath while I
read these stories. I can't stand to read this, and I can't stand
not to read this story. It is excrutiating to have to wait on the next
chapter.
By Christy Reeves
May 12, 2006 03:16 PM | Link to this
I would like to say "Thank You" to Jane O. Hansen for telling my
brothers story and everyone elses, I am looking forward to the
additional chapters in the series.
By Nicole
May 12, 2006 09:48 PM | Link to this
Thank you so much - this series is moving and powerful, and tells a
story that really needs to be told. Thanks for doing this!
James Zachary
CHAPTER 8: STIFLING HEAT, SLIPPING MORALE, SURPRISE PATIENTS
By Jane O. Hansen | Saturday, May 13, 2006, 03:21 PM
New Orleans - At Charity Hospital, Susan Sanborn held tight to her
sanity by keeping up with her job.
As a student nurse, the petite woman with curly auburn hair was in
charge of bathing patients, cleaning their bedpans and changing their
sheets in her unit on 4-Central. By Wednesday, Aug. 31, she had only 10
sheets and two clean hospital gowns left. The toilets were so gross,
someone put up a sign saying, "For the love of God, please do not use
this toilet anymore - go to Port-A's for crap (or at least another
floor)." It was signed "The new management."
Sanborn's domain was the "hopper room," where she emptied
catheters and bedpans into a huge receptacle. She obsessively
calculated how many days she had left before even the hopper
overflowed.
What am I going to do with this urine and feces? she asked herself.
Sanborn, 37, had gone into nursing as a second career after fleeing a
bad relationship and moving from one hurricane-prone area to another. A
professional modern dancer with an undergraduate degree in psychology,
she'd lived in Florida where she did dance therapy in shelters for
troubled children. In New Orleans, she was working on a geriatrics
psychiatric unit when her supervisor asked whether she'd ever
considered becoming a nurse.
Wow, you think I could do this? she had asked him.
She applied to Charity's school of nursing and quickly fell in love
with the hospital's patients, staff and program. The doctors and
nurses took time to teach her. She felt respected and was allowed to
practice her skills. She never dreamed she'd become such an expert in
packing bullet holes - one of the benefits of working in the city's
only Level 1 trauma center.
She was eight days into her last year of nursing school when Hurricane
Katrina hit.
As her patients' anxiety level rose, Sanborn tried to comfort them.
They repeatedly asked for water, but many just wanted attention. An
83-year-old woman who had been in an automobile accident asked whether
her doctor would be angry if she sucked a peppermint. Her mouth was so
dry. She had nothing but her bathrobe and nine peppermints. Sanborn
said sure.
The heat inside the hospital was so unbearable that doctors and nurses
- sweat dripping off their noses - heaved oxygen tanks through
sealed windows to let fresh air inside. As diesel for the portable
generators began to run low, they siphoned fuel from trucks and
ambulances.
Morale was slipping. More than 24 hours had passed since the state
command post in Baton Rouge had sent word that the federal government
was on the way.
Four patients had died, although all had been very critical before the
storm - a woman with end-stage cancer, a young man with multiple
injuries from a motorcycle accident, a man who had overdosed on
cocaine, and an elderly woman from a nursing home. With the basement
morgue flooded, staff put the bodies in upper stairwells.
A prayer meeting led by the chaplain on the emergency room ramp
Wednesday afternoon lifted some spirits. It became as much a pep rally
as a prayer service, and they would repeat it every day. Someone would
speak a thought, say a prayer; then they would hug and cry. Some people
had no idea where their family members were - or whether they'd
survived. As the energy mounted, they clapped and sang gospel songs and
"We Shall Overcome." Doctors, nurses, janitors, family members
swayed to the music as if they were at a Baptist revival.
On Sanborn's unit, nurses made a banner and hung it out the
fourth-floor window. Maybe someone would see it. On a sheet, in huge
purple, red and blue letters, they wrote: "FORGOTTEN BUT NOT LOST!"
Throughout New Orleans that week, many were forgotten and lost. A
National Guard unit found some nursing home patients and brought them
to Charity.
We can't take care of these people, Sanborn thought. We want you to
take people away, not bring us more.
Sanborn's unit got two of the patients. Both men were on ventilators,
had tracheotomies and couldn't speak. They also had catheters and
feeding tubes. No one knew what was wrong with them, what medications
they needed, what kind of treatment they had been receiving. Were they
on insulin? The staff couldn't read the names pinned to the clothes
of the two men. Because one was black and one white, they named them
after the Stevie Wonder/Paul McCartney song "Ebony and Ivory."
At first, Sanborn felt certain they wouldn't survive.
Not knowing what else to do, nurses gave them Ensure - a high-calorie
nutritional drink - through their feeding tubes. They gave them water
every four hours and Ativan to relieve anxiety.
There was no room for them in the open ward where staff had crammed the
other patients to take advantage of the limited working equipment. So
they put Ebony and Ivory on the "dark side" of the unit, across the
hall, where there was no light or working devices. Sanborn felt it was
symbolic. They'd been abandoned to the water and now they were being
abandoned again.
She quickly grew attached to the two elderly men. Ivory in particular
seemed aware of what was going on, and he and Sanborn developed a
rapport.
Oh, it's time for lunch, she would say to him, making light of the
hospital's shortage of food and water. Today it's vanilla Ensure.
He rolled his eyes at her.
As a bonus for you, there's water. And guess what? This water is not
from the street. It's from a bottle!
He smiled at her. He seemed to enjoy the banter; it helped them both.
Then Ebony, who medically had seemed the stronger of the two, took a
turn for the worse. Sanborn couldn't get his blood pressure,
suggesting his heart had stopped beating or was so weak she couldn't
get a reading with a blood pressure cuff. His temperature soared to 104
degrees. The nurses knew he needed intravenous fluids, but his veins
had collapsed and they couldn't get in a line.
A group of surgical residents - doctors in their final years of
training - ran up the stairs and began the more complicated procedure
of threading a line into Ebony's femoral vein in his groin. Midway
through, a doctor burst into the room.
What are you doing? he demanded. I thought we agreed all these people
from the boats are DNR [medical code for "Do not resuscitate"]. He
ordered them to quit wasting their time.
The residents and nurses grew very quiet, recalled Sanborn and two
others who were there. They didn't say they would do what the staff
physician ordered. And they didn't say they wouldn't. The physician
left, they completed the procedure, and they began giving the man IV
fluids. By the end of the day, Ebony's blood pressure was back up to
92 over 48 - not normal but he was alive.
Ebony and Ivory were going to survive this, Sanborn told herself. They
had to.
ON MONDAY: On the rooftop at Tulane Hospital, "The Man" arrives.
Chapter 9 of 22.
Comments
By Arleen
May 13, 2006 04:43 PM | Link to this
This should be REQUIRED reading for President Bush!
Jane you are the best....
By Ed
May 13, 2006 07:21 PM | Link to this
Not surprising, the very first comment was anti-Bush. Would I expect
any more? Of course not.
By Chip
May 13, 2006 11:06 PM | Link to this
Let me correct Arleen. You should not just show Bush but Nagin and
Blanco. After being in NOLA last weekend I was disgusted at the way the
whole situation was handeled. I don't care what your political
affiliation is, this is a disaster. We are all Americans and should try
to help each other as so. This incident clearly shows that we have not
done that.
By Shannon
May 14, 2006 08:51 AM | Link to this
Jane - what a great job you have done with this article. I eagerly look
forward to each installment. I find it so sad and intriguing at the
same time.
By Mike
May 14, 2006 09:47 AM | Link to this
This is a awesome story. I can't wait to read it everyday. By the
way, this should br required reading for all. I have been to NOLA and
it is a damn shame the way that the local, state and federal government
is handling the crisis. I really am not surprised by the way the
insurance company is handling things. This was expected!
By Mike
May 14, 2006 10:50 AM | Link to this
This should be required reading for all persons. All levels of
governmenrt shoud take notice. This is a well written story that I have
to read everyday. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I have been
to NOLA since Katrina, it is a damn shame how our government is
treating these people. It is even worst how the insurance companies are
treating them. But, we expected this from the insurance companies.
By angela
May 14, 2006 12:51 PM | Link to this
This story is great.The sad part is that it's not a story. This
really happen.
By Bebe Fitzpatrick
May 14, 2006 02:23 PM | Link to this
Having been in Charity with both Susan Celeste and Dr. Ben (I know them
all), I appreciate the contrast of what occured at Charity vs. Tulane.
There was nothing more frustrating and demoralizing than watching the
evacuation of THC from the fire escape of Charity. I worked on 9 West
at Charity, the HIV/AIDS unit, we too had critical patients and were
forced to practice symptomatic vs. confirmed diagnosis medicine. To our
great fortune we had what I consider the best of the best from every
department staffing the hospital during the Code Grey. I applaude the
Atlanta Journal for undertaking this story that needs to be told as our
own local paper is busy with elections and day to day buisness of
"recovery" that seems to me as slow as molassas going uphill. My
best to all my comrades from Charity, we accomplished the impossible
under the most severe conditions ever to be encountered outside of the
Third World, hold your heads high, job well done. Bebe Fitzpatrick RN,
Sup 2, 9 West, MCLNO-Charity
By Sharlondrah N. Stephens
May 14, 2006 03:03 PM | Link to this
This series is like a drug addiction. I really look forward to the next
chapter each day!!! I'm loving it!!!
By Ann
May 14, 2006 04:40 PM | Link to this
This should be required reading for every Hospital administrator,
Nursing Home administrator,or any Health Care Provider. I have read
with fascination each day's segment.
It is NOT the government's responsibility to implement your disaster
plan. It is the responsibility of each Health Care Organization to have
a workable disaster plan and the resources to implement the plan if
need be.
I applaud Tulane's disaster plan. It appears it was throughly planned
and then quickly implemented. Did Charity Hospital have a disaster
plan? If so, who was in charge? Who is accountable for the many
failures of the plan?--Certainly not the federal government.
Probably not the LA State government; maybe the local government has
some responsibility if they owned the hospital or managed the hospital.
How about the people of New Orleans? What were they doing to help? The
news reports I was viewing at the time indicated the town had pretty
much gone lawless and "the People" were shooting at helicopters
trying to rescue patients as well as stealing everything from
televisions, jewelry, cars, and anything else they could get their
hands on.
A Disaster such as Katrina brings out the very best and the very worst
behavior in people. May we all learn from this and each be individually
prepared for the next incident. Many Kudos to the angels who stood by
every patient at all the facilities in NO and all the pepole who did
step up to the plate to help in the rescue.
By
May 15, 2006 02:13 AM | Link to this
did they survive??
By Stanley
May 16, 2006 02:21 PM | Link to this
I agree with Arleen. George Bush and every other politician who had any
involvement in this shameful period should be required to read this!!!
James Zachary
CHAPTER 9: 'THE MAN' FROM MACON: A COMMANDING PRESENCE
By Jane O. Hansen | Sunday, May 14, 2006, 05:11 PM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New Orleans - Col. John Holland stepped off the red, white and blue
Emory Flight helicopter Wednesday morning - a vision of calm and
control.
I need to get to your command center, he said.
A new player in the bold rescue of Tulane Hospital was about to assume
control of the rooftop helipad. He would make all the difference in how
many choppers could land, how quickly they could load up and take off,
and whether they could do it without anyone getting killed.
Tulane's corporate owner had marshaled all the resources. But it
would be a Georgian in a teal blue flight suit who would bring
expertise to the operation. The mission may have appeared simple and
smooth to some onlookers. But the landing of so many helicopters was
fraught with peril - something pilots understood better than anyone.
With 30 years in the military and 36 as a pilot, Holland would become
known simply as "The Man."
That night, when police Cmdr. Dan Bitton flew his helicopter into New
Orleans, there wasn't a star in the sky. He told his crew - all
cops from north of Chicago - that when they located the parking
garage roof at Tulane, they wouldn't land without first doing a
"go-around."
That's the command used on approach by any member of the crew who
becomes uncomfortable with a landing. He simply says, "Go around."
The pilot pulls up and out. No questions asked.
The four agreed Wednesday night they would do a maximum of two
go-arounds. If they weren't confident by then, they'd abort the
mission.
Even in daylight, the flight path to Tulane was risky, requiring pilots
to navigate through a canyon of tall buildings. On a pitch-dark night,
in a city without light, it was death-defying.
Bitton was at the controls, wearing night vision goggles.
As a seasoned cop, Vietnam veteran and pilot with more than 14,000
hours of flight time, Bitton, 52, was a fearless cowboy prone to
pushing the envelope. He was among the first to be trained in a new
generation of goggles approved for use in taking off and landing.
As he maneuvered around buildings and power lines, his head was in
constant motion. The helicopter, a Eurocopter EC-135, was equipped with
sophisticated radar equipment. But nothing could prepare them for this
sea of blackness.
The night vision goggles blocked peripheral vision, so Bitton swiveled
his head to the left, to the right, up, down. To see what was in front
of him, he had to look directly ahead through the goggles. To see the
aircraft's instrument panel, he had to look beneath them. If he
looked under and out, he'd see nothing but pure black.
To get everyone out of Tulane quickly, the Hospital Corporation of
America would eventually lease 24 helicopters and secure the aid of six
military choppers. HCA also positioned nearby supplies of food, water
and medicine. Pilots such as Bitton, trained to fly at night, were
critical to keeping the operation moving.
Building to your left! Building to your right! yelled his crew from the
Winthrop Harbor Police Department.
After about 15 minutes, Bitton's crew spotted what they believed was
the parking garage roof. They had no way to communicate with anyone
there. Bitton discussed his approach with the crew - what angle he
would bring in the aircraft, from what direction, where he'd land.
The tension was high, and Bitton tried to lighten the mood. Hey, it's
as easy as pie to fly, he said. But they all knew this wouldn't be
easy.
As they began the approach, no one spoke. Then, Go around! Bitton
immediately gave the helicopter power and climbed to a safe altitude to
circle.
OK, guys, what do you think?
The crew member who'd spoken had suddenly seen a nearby hotel and
thought Bitton was too close.
Then another crew member spoke: Commander Bitton, do you think you can
do this?
Yes.
He told them where he planned to start and finish. They agreed to give
it one more try. But only one.
As each helicopter landed, Sharif Omar waited until the rotors slowed
down enough that he could run up and yell, What can you take? The
pilots called the shots.
They told him the type of patient the craft could carry - ambulatory
or stretcher. Where they could take patients depended on how much fuel
they had, where they were based, and how many hours they had been
flying. Under federal aviation regulations, pilots can be on duty only
12 hours before they have to rotate out.
Some helicopters had no medical equipment on board and could not take
patients who would need it. If the aircraft was low on fuel, it could
fly only a limited distance. Others could fly only to the location from
which they had come.
Omar, Tulane's 26-year-old associate vice president of operations,
had been put in charge of the makeshift helipad Tuesday morning. But he
had no experience directing air traffic. When John Holland and his
co-pilot alighted Wednesday, wearing helmets and visors and saying they
were there to help, to Omar they were knights in shining armor.
Less than 24 hours earlier, Holland had been home in Macon with his
wife of 28 years, Betty. At 55, he was director of aviation for the
Southeast region of LifeNet, a private company that provides
helicopters for medical emergencies. The company owns Emory Flight,
which transports patients to and from Atlanta hospitals.
Holland grew up on a dirt farm in Reidsville, Ga., raised by his
grandparents, who were sharecroppers. He went straight from high school
into the Army and finished advanced flight training by the time he was
22.
Over three decades, he served around the world - in the hostile
demilitarized zone of Korea, in South America, in the Middle East. By
the time he retired from the Army in 1999, he had reached the rank of
colonel.
Taking control of the Tulane roof was not out of character for Holland.
Nor was this his first disaster rescue.
He had learned the value of communication systems while running the air
rescue operation for Hurricane Andrew in 1992. In addition to the
satellite tracking system on each of the three aircraft he brought to
New Orleans, he made sure each had cellphones with different providers.
He knew some would get signals where others wouldn't. Also key was
finding a place to refuel.
Once inside the Tulane command post - a small, dark, windowless room
- Holland could see how exhausted everyone was. Four or five senior
personnel huddled around their only light, a battery-operated lantern.
Holland told them he had some experience in this type of disaster and
if he could help with the helipad ... Yes, please, they interrupted.
He was impressed with their demeanor. He had seen commanders lose it in
a crisis, yelling and screaming at troops. But these people were calm,
clear and professional. As a retired colonel, Holland knew how senior
leadership should act, and he saw in them model behavior.
Returning to the roof, he asked for a head count.
The first estimate: About 500 employees and family, plus 120 or so
patients. Not good enough, Holland said. I need a more accurate count.
The total grew from 620 to 800, then to 1,000. Eventually, it topped
1,200.
Holland briefed Omar and the others on how the rooftop operation would
work. With reddish-brown hair, a matching mustache and smile lines
around his eyes, Holland had an uncommonly melodic voice that rarely
rose out of control yet commanded respect. There would be no running
and no yelling, he said. Both fueled chaos and threatened safety.
He trained them to use hand signals to communicate over the din of the
helicopters. Fist in the air meant "Stay where you are." Arms out
to the side: "Hold your hover." Arms straight up: "Land here."
Arms straight down: "Bring it down." Finger across throat: "Shut
it down."
He encouraged upper management to wear the same colored shirt each day;
he would remain in his teal blue Emory flight suit. The uniforms would
signal who was in charge.
When a helicopter landed, Holland checked the fuel and used a steno pad
to scratch out notes to the pilot. How many more flights could he make?
"One more, fuel first, then we'll be back," one pilot wrote back
in a jagged scrawl, his hand shaking from the vibrating aircraft.
When helicopters returned, they brought back batteries, food and other
supplies coordinated by HCA headquarters. Holland developed a taste for
honey nut granola bars and Pop-Tarts.
He wrote down a radio frequency that pilots could use to communicate
with other aircraft headed to Tulane. Radio traffic was building, and
he had found a frequency that wasn't commonly used.
To expedite the rescue, Holland ordered that a secondary staging area
be set up on the seventh floor of the parking garage, just below the
rooftop. He formed two lines: Patients on stretchers or in wheelchairs
would be carried or wheeled up the ramp; ambulatory patients and others
who could walk would climb the stairs to the roof.
After he communicated with each pilot, Holland pointed to the
appropriate line and held up fingers indicating how many could come up.
Omar and the others repeated the gesture like an Indian hand signal,
relaying the information down the ramp.
The roof was becoming a more dangerous place. To save time, they had
begun "hot loading" the helicopters - a risky procedure. It
involved putting people aboard with the rotors running instead of
shutting them down, shaving 25 minutes off the process.
Later, when ham radio operators arrived to help, the system began
moving even faster.
"Hams," as they call themselves, live for the roles they can play
during disasters when other forms of communication fail. Two members of
the Tallahassee Amateur Radio Society had volunteered to go to New
Orleans. One set up on the Tulane roof; the other initially was
stationed at the airport and later joined his buddy at the garage. They
communicated with a third ham at the Tallahassee office of HCA, who
relayed information on which hospitals had agreed to take patients,
which kind of aircraft were on the way, and the grid coordinates to
pass on to the pilots.
By late Wednesday, they had such an organized flow of traffic that some
helicopters landed there by mistake. One - a chopper filled with
isolettes - was due at another hospital to evacuate babies.
To improve night landing, Holland instructed staff to drive four cars
up and park them in the corners of the garage roof, their high beams
pointed toward the middle. The beams' cross point gave pilots a
reference as they descended into the concrete valley.
When Bitton finally landed Wednesday night, Holland helped bring him
down. Pilots like Bitton, who had a military background, recognized a
kindred spirit in Holland. Bitton told Holland he was short of fuel.
Where could he find some? Holland told him there was a military post at
the I-10 causeway.
*That's a zoo, *Bitton said.
Holland didn't know where Bitton was headed when he lifted off. He
just knew he'd be back.
By now, the operation was running so well that, where once they
wondered whether they could land a single helicopter, they were landing
six. In a gesture of support, an HCA hospital in Florida airlifted in a
giant American flag. The maintenance staff hung it just under the
storm-battered Tulane Hospital sign that crowned the building at its
highest point.
I was put here for a purpose, Holland thought to himself. This is where
I'm supposed to be.
Still, he worried the operation was moving too slowly. Hundreds of
people awaited evacuation.
And what about the animals? someone asked as people were being loaded
into a chopper.
Holland responded with a blank stare.
What animals?
ON TUESDAY: At Charity Hospital, desperate calls to the media. Chapter
10 of 22.
Comments
By Jan Houston
May 15, 2006 06:42 AM | Link to this
waiting for the next chapter each day is difficult to do, imagine being
in NO then............... Hail to the Heroes!!
By lynn d
May 15, 2006 07:08 AM | Link to this
This series is outstanding journalism. It has been a really riveting
read. BRAVO to all involved.
By Robin
May 15, 2006 08:42 AM | Link to this
I don't have the words within me to express what I feel. I thank you
for writing this exceptional article and sharing it with the world. All
of the people at these hospitals and those that came to help are heros.
Each and every one of them. We never know what we are capable of doing
until suddenly, we have no choice but to step up to the plate.
All of these put their faith in God and stepped up to the plate.
Well done. Well done.
By Jan Kowalik
May 15, 2006 08:58 AM | Link to this
While you wrote a lot about the chain of command at the company in
charge of Tulane Hospital, there was one critical missing person in
your story: Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (Democrat).
Where was she when Charity Hospital needed help? Was she taking a nap,
visiting her hairdresser or shopping? Jan
By Larry
May 15, 2006 09:00 AM | Link to this
This series has shown that private sector is better equipped and has
better access to resources than government sector in times of
disasters. Government juast has too many layers and too much red tape
to be effective compared to private companies. Great job on the story -
have enjoyed reading about what went on behind the scenes.
By
May 15, 2006 09:01 AM | Link to this
Fascinating read, just one question keeps popping up. Where in the
world was the worlds biggest, most expensive, most advanced hi-tech
military machine?
By Linda G
May 15, 2006 09:10 AM | Link to this
Once again, I was riveted to the story. It is so well done....I cry
every day that I read this, knowing that people worked so hard to save
others. Amazing.
By Derrick Lockwood
May 15, 2006 10:28 AM | Link to this
This story reminds me of the heroic deeds done by heroic people time
and time again for those in need! Kudos to all involved in this
project! We are better informed as a result. The work on the Gulf Coast
continues....
By
May 15, 2006 10:29 AM | Link to this
Wow! Thats really all I could say. Many have spent their time worrying
and fussing over the things that were not done but were supposed to be.
I really think that this brings us to realiztion that there were people
who actually tried their best to help those in need of it in the NO.
By Erin Lagarde
May 15, 2006 11:26 AM | Link to this
Jane, Thank you for writing this story. I am from New Orleans. Mel
Lagarde is my father and my two best friends are nurses for Tulane who
stayed during the hurricane and evacuation. Though, i already know the
details of this story it is still awe-inspiring to hear of the strenght
and courage of my dad,mytwo best friends, and all the other workers of
Tulane and Charity hospitals. they are my heros. thanks so much.
How can I get the actual articles, instead of printing them off the
internet?
By Virginia
May 15, 2006 12:11 PM | Link to this
Excellent series, await each and every chapter with a catch in my
throat and tears in my eyes. Thanks to all the great people in this
story and the unnamed ones, that keep the hospital running and the
patients alive. Goes to show you, that you have to rely on yourselves
and not the Government for help. Some people are better equipted to
think on their feet, while in an emergency situation than others. You
do what you have to do, to take care of a situation. Not sit around and
scratch your head, wondering where help is coming from! What did our
forefathers do? They had to come up with a plan and get it going.
By Earl Parkerson
May 15, 2006 02:40 PM | Link to this
Even when we read such great journalism somehow we always look for that
one post that will be bashing Bush, this great country or our great
military. And, as always that one post always seems to pop up.
This is a time for reading, enjoying and understanding that there are
many good caring people in this world who are willing to give it all
even in the face of disaster.
We all know of the failures of Nagin, Blanco and Big Goverment in
handing this disaster but for now lets just praise those who did make a
difference and dont take away from the true sprit of the series. This
is a time to reflex on the bravery of so many pilots, crew members,
(both private and military) and of course all the people on the ground
who made this possible. God bless all of you and "A JOB WELL DONE".
By Patti Wright
May 15, 2006 03:06 PM | Link to this
Jane: I too have a sistet that works for Tulane Medical and was taken
by boat from her building to the Hospital. She was airlifted out on
Friday and was there for all of the rescue efforts. Having all of the
behind the scence details in print has made the impact of understanding
all of this even greater. What a enourmous undertaking by HCA and all
of those employees. WE are so thankful for their help in getting our
loved one home to us.
By Robert McBride
May 15, 2006 03:30 PM | Link to this
To answer a earlier question. The governor had everything under control
as stated in a news cast on noon Tuesday, 8/30 "As we speak, big
Charity is being evacuated".
They got out afternoon of FRIDAY, 9/2. Bob
By Nancy
May 15, 2006 03:41 PM | Link to this
Hospital Corporation of America had better have the resources to save
patients! After all, HCA was found guilty of the largest Medicare and
Medicaid fraud in history and paid one of the highest fines in history.
By Ann D.
May 16, 2006 02:42 AM | Link to this
To the commenter who said "This series has shown that private sector
is better equipped and has better access to resources than government
sector in times of disasters." I beg to differ. This story shows that
HCA did a wonderful job. Please don't infer that all private entities
did an equally good job. At another private hospital across town, run
by the Tenet Corporation, the story was much different. Nurses and
doctors were certainly individually heroic, but there was no evidence
of preparation, leadership, or organization. Communication primarily
took the form of a rumor mill among the patients, families, and junior
staff. The staff on our floor didn't even have sufficient batteries
or lights.
I don't know what happened to the ambulatory patients I last saw
boarding airboats, apparently supplied by volunteers who had heard
there was a need, according to the captain of the boat who got me out.
(Another rumor had some of them as friends called in by some of the
doctors). I also have no idea what happened with the more serious
patients who were sweltering in the sun and boat fumes on the ER ramp.
I can tell you that patients' families who boarded airboats on
Wednesday afternoon were told by Tenet employees that we would be taken
to a place with buses, which would take us to safe desintinations up or
down river. Instead, we were dropped at the nearest dry land and left
to fend for ourselves, no longer Tenet's problem. We became the
problem of the NO Police Dept., who immediately established control and
effectively communicated to everyone there that we shouldn't worry,
that they would not leave until they found a place for us to go. They
ended up commandeering any vehicle they could find, and bused us away
to destination unknown. It turned out to be the Convention Center. As
bad as it was it was an improvement over conditions in the hospital.
By deloreswright
May 16, 2006 11:43 AM | Link to this
I am from New Orleans and left the Saturday before Katrina hit and the
flooding began. I am now in Arlington Texas and am reading your series.
Thank you for informatin and the truth. God bless. Delores Wright
James Zachary
CHAPTER 10: RUMORS, RED TAPE AND DESPERATE CALLS FOR HELP
By Jane O. Hansen | Monday, May 15, 2006, 03:19 PM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New Orleans - The story spread rapidly through Charity Hospital,
devastating those who were scrambling to save lives but running out of
time: Gov. Kathleen Blanco had announced that Charity had already been
evacuated.
One nurse began to cry. We're going to die. We're never going to
get out of here.
Many news reports out of New Orleans the week that Hurricane Katrina
hit were wrong or skewed. The governor had told CNN on Tuesday, Aug.
30, that Big Charity, without backup power, was "not functional at
this time, and we are trying to evacuate the patients there." Soon
after, the television network reported that Charity was already
"being evacuated." By the time the statement reached those inside
the hospital, it had falsely morphed into a done deal: Everyone was
out.
Over and over, they had heard that the Federal Emergency Management
Agency was on its way to rescue them. Now they felt truly forgotten. No
one knew they were still there. No one would be coming.
Student nurse Susan Sanborn watched as a nurse snatched up her two
young children and waded away from the hospital in chest-high water.
Looking down from her fourth-floor window, Sanborn cried. She didn't
think they'd make it. How could the woman risk her children's
lives? How could she desert her job and patients?
Another nurse from Sanborn's unit was relieved of her duties and
threatened with being sent to the psychiatric ward.
The misinformation marked a turning point.
Doctors and nurses began calling CNN, Fox News and anyone they could
reach to get the word out that they were still there. Miraculously, the
WATS line in Sanborn's unit still worked. By Wednesday, the nation
was getting a firsthand account of the life-and-death crisis inside
Charity.
Among those put on the air was Krystin Smith, a registered nurse who
was caring for one of the hospital's sickest patients, 23-year-old
Hunter Reeves.
"Our patients are sitting in feces, and just - it's awful,"
Smith told Paula Zahn of CNN. "I mean, we are - and not only that,
we are scared for ourselves too because it's becoming a hazard to
take care of the patients, because we are now getting sick... .
That's why we contacted you, because we thought that you all would
get it out there that we're suffering here, that we're not doing
too well, and not just our patients, but us too."
As chief of trauma at Charity and director of trauma for the Tulane
medical school, Dr. Norm McSwain had loyalties to both Charity and
Tulane Hospital. He was in Tulane's command post most of that week.
But as time wore on, his concern grew for Charity; he worried it was
being left behind.
McSwain, 68, saw how the Hospital Corporation of America was mobilizing
to get everyone out of Tulane. Mel Lagarde, an HCA executive, refused
to accept no from anyone. On the other side of the street, the Charity
administrators weren't nearly as aggressive, McSwain felt, in part
because they had been told the government was on its way.
A nationally known trauma expert who trained at Atlanta's Grady
Memorial Hospital, McSwain called a leader in the National Association
of Emergency Medical Technicians. We're having trouble getting
through to anybody who will help us out, he told him. Can anybody get
through to somebody in the White House?
Within minutes, an Associated Press reporter and a reporter with USA
Today reached McSwain on his cellphone. He told both that if Charity
didn't get help soon, people would die.
"Somebody needs to come in a hurry," McSwain told USA Today.
"By 'in a hurry,' I don't mean tomorrow or the next day. They
need to get here tonight. By tomorrow we'll have dead patients simply
because they were not evacuated."
Don Smithburg, chief executive officer over all nine public hospitals
in the Louisiana State University system, including Charity, also felt
powerless. Since Saturday, he'd been stationed at the state command
center in Baton Rouge. Now he watched as Michael Brown, head of FEMA at
the time, held a news conference at the center, blaming state and local
governments for their slow response.
Brown defended his agency, telling reporters it was taking so long to
evacuate hospitals because medical staff needed time to get their
patients ready. Smithburg knew that Charity's patients had been ready
since Tuesday morning when the basement flooded.
He had been buttonholing everyone at the state emergency operations
center. He pleaded for help from representatives of FEMA, the National
Guard, the Coast Guard and any other government official who would
listen.
The governor was also at the state command post, and Smithburg spoke
regularly to her. Conditions in Charity and its affiliate, University
Hospital, were dire and deteriorating, he told her. She too asked
federal officials for help.
But there was no clear chain of command, and Smithburg felt buried
under bureaucratic red tape. Instead of walking across the room and
saying what he needed, he had to sit at a computer and type up a
cumbersome e-mail request, whether it was for security or to evacuate
two entire hospitals.
Three times, he was told the government was on its way to Charity and
University hospitals. Three times between Tuesday and Thursday, he
radioed the information to the hospitals: FEMA is coming! The National
Guard is coming! A National Guard truck did show up Wednesday night and
took away some of Charity's less critical patients. But there was no
wholesale evacuation.
In the void, more and more employees began calling Smithburg after
someone obtained his cellphone number. He knew it was unusual for
employees to reach out to a CEO, but he had become their lifeline. Some
nurses sobbed uncontrollably, and he tried to reassure them.
They didn't think they were going to get out. As their leader, he
felt helpless.
Employees told him they were starting to feed themselves intravenously.
TOMORROW: Dr. Ben deBoisblanc tries to save his four most critical
patients - including Hunter Reeves and Preston Johnson. Chapter 11 of
22.
Permalink | Comments (10) | Post your comment |
Comments
By P. E. Adams
May 15, 2006 06:09 PM | Link to this
I don't understand why Charity Hospital, as large as it was, did not
have an evacuation plan. If they did have one who was in charge of
it's implementation? It seems the moral of this story is that relying
on or waiting for the government, at any level, is going to be your
worst choice. The private sector can be much more nimble and agressive
in responding because...they just do it!
By Seth Simon
May 16, 2006 08:32 AM | Link to this
The philosophy has always been "shelter in place," or "vertical
evacuation." They thought that the cost of evacuating all of the
patients was prohibitive, that people would die needlessly enroute,
that the huge pumps would take care of the city.
This wasn't just the government. This was most of the hospitals and
nursing homes in southeast Lousiana. Very few administrators wanted to
deal with the hassles of evacuations or had the resources to pay for
it.
By
May 16, 2006 08:38 AM | Link to this
Ok, yes I do believe that Charity should have had an evactuation plan,
but lets stop and think even if they had a plan they still had no
funding to implement the plan. Tulane was able to evacuate because they
were a private hospital getting very private help. I understand that
the two hospitals were public and private sectors but I honestly feel
that the heads of both hopitals should have came together and not
operated as two separate intities in that dire time of distress. After
all of the critical patients were evacuated at Tulane I feel they
should have then tried to atleast evacuate the critical patients at
Charity seeing as the the two hospitals were literally right next door
to each other maybe I'm missing something, but alot could have gone
differently.
By V.J.Rob
May 16, 2006 09:04 AM | Link to this
I am proud to say that I work for HCA, they are awesome and truly came
through for Tulane. I think that this should be a lesson for other
hospitals in both the public and private sectors. Katrina not only
affected LA and MS, it affected the entire country. We all still grieve
for the lost lives and injustice that took place. Thank you for writing
these articles and I cannot wait to read more.
By Robin
May 16, 2006 09:25 AM | Link to this
This is in response to the comment by PE Adams..........
One thing that everyone should keep in mind is that the private sector
has money at their disposal that Charity Hospital did not have. That is
one of the biggest differences between private Hospitals and public
hospitals. Tulane had corporate resources they could call on for help.
Charity did not.
By Carol Newey
May 16, 2006 09:51 AM | Link to this
I am a former (retired) HCA nurse and feel proud of the company and its
organization. I can sympathize with all the nurses from both Charity
and Tulane who were involved in the Katrina disaster. I remember how we
hated all those disaster drills we participated in but hearing how well
organized was the evacuation of Tulane makes it all worth while.
By CNewey
May 16, 2006 10:07 AM | Link to this
In reply to P.E.Adams comment: It may have been a case of everybody
thought somebody else should do it and nobody did.
By Mitchel Haralson
May 16, 2006 11:41 AM | Link to this
Right-wing conservatives set out to destroy the big federal
govrnment's power and return it to the states. They succeeded! But
when a big federal government effort was needed, in an emergency, then
the weakened federal agencies that Bush and his cornies created were
not up to the job. Now the right-wing nuts are blaming the victums for
relying on the federal government which the conservatives had just
downsized to the point that it was now basically useless.
By Gene
May 16, 2006 12:02 PM | Link to this
I was there that Fri when the last of us got off the roof; in fact,
Theo and I along with John Holland were the last 3 on the garage
waiting for patients from Charity hospital that never came. The last we
heard before leaving was that they had been evacuated by boat and
truck, but we didn't even get that word until the roof had been
stocked with thousands or pounds of food and water for Charity to use
in their own evacuation. The word we had was that we were going to
clear the roof and let Charity use it as their helipad since their own
pad was flooded and they were going to leave us in place to help
coordinate like we had done with Tulane. With no one to evacuate, they
finally pulled us out.
By Gene
May 25, 2006 10:18 AM | Link to this
Correction, that was not John Holland with us at the end, that was his
relief, a paramedic who took his place. We were never formally
introduced. I was wondering after seeing a picture of Col Holland's
face and then reading that he was relieved after the last critical
patient had left.
James Zachary
CHAPTER 11: THREE MOTHERS, THREE SONS AND A SORROW SHARED
By Jane O. Hansen | Tuesday, May 16, 2006, 12:51 PM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New Orleans - Celeste Waddell didn't know whether Hunter Reeves
felt her presence. A respiratory therapist at Charity Hospital for
nearly 22 years, she refused to leave her patient's side as he
struggled for his life. Hunter, unconscious, had come to Charity the
week before Hurricane Katrina, in critical condition. Waddell, 46,
didn't want him to die alone.
At 23, he was barely older than her son, Christopher, her only child.
She'd always been so proud of him. Christopher had been sickly as an
infant, but he'd grown into a strapping young man. At 6-foot-2 and
weighing 300 pounds, he'd been a freshman walk-on player the previous
year for the Northwestern State University football team in Louisiana.
It was the mom in her that drew Waddell to Hunter. His medical
treatment had been cut off by the storm. But she didn't want the
young man to suffer.
When the emergency power failed, she kept him breathing by squeezing a
bag to pump oxygen into his lungs. When the heat rose, she fanned him.
She poured her drinking water onto a towel and put the cloth on his
fevered brow.
Dr. Ben deBoisblanc, director of the medical intensive care unit, tried
to relieve her, but she snapped at him. Leave me alone, she said. I'm
all right. Go help somebody else. The two had worked together for 15
years, and often fussed at each other.
Throughout Charity, people were on edge. They felt as if they were
trapped on a sinking ship.
Someone who became known as "The Food Angel" brought the staff
half-full Dixie cups of cold canned pork and beans or cold tomato soup.
But food was running out for everyone. Nurses gave hungry patients
multivitamins to provide at least some basic nutrients; some gave
themselves intravenous fluids to prevent dehydration.
In the delirium of little sleep, food or water, they could see
helicopters circling above and landing across the street at Tulane
Hospital. But they were locked inside their own prison. They had no
idea what was going on.
By Wednesday, rumors were flying. They're coming to evacuate Tulane
but not us. Gangs have taken over the hotels. People are committing
suicide in the Superdome.
They could see looters wading through the water with stolen goods. They
heard the crashing of storefront windows and occasional gunshots. In
the growing anarchy, they feared that armed thugs would storm the
hospital. The crisis in morale was evolving into mutiny.
Dr. Ben and others came to a conclusion: The only way we're going to
get off this rock is to rescue ourselves.
He was fed up with the false promises that the government was coming.
He questioned whether hospital leaders were even asserting themselves.
The CEO, Dwayne Thomas, remained five blocks away at Charity's
affiliate, University Hospital, which had also lost backup power.
Dr. Ben respected those who seemed to be in charge at Charity - Ed
Burke, chief financial officer; Ron Broadus, director of human
resources; Adler Voltaire, Charity's chief administrative officer;
and Dr. Jim Aiken, medical director for emergency preparedness. But
they didn't appear to him to be thinking outside the box. Katrina was
its own breed of hurricane; it didn't fit into the neat confines of
the emergency preparation plan they were relying on.
Some medical staff felt those in charge were like generals in a war
room who seldom ventured into the field. They cared deeply about the
patients, but they didn't know what it was like to watch them
gradually wither away without dialysis. The doctors and nurses were in
the trenches, their hands aching from hand-ventilating people they
feared would die in their arms.
Charity staff had called CNN to let the world know of their plight.
Soon afterward, the CEO of an air ambulance company headquartered in
West Plains, Mo., contacted someone at Charity. His helicopters were
already assisting in the evacuation of Tulane Hospital. He had four
medevacs that could each take one patient if Charity could get its four
sickest over to the Tulane parking garage, to a makeshift helipad.
Dr. Ben consulted with other doctors: Which four should go first?
Dr. Ben stopped by Hunter Reeves' bed to reassure his mother, Sherry
Hebert. Hang in there, he said, grabbing her by the arm. We're going
to get him out of here.
Of the four patients they had chosen to evacuate, Hunter was No. 1. He
was young and his condition was treatable, and that meant his chances
of survival were good if he received the medical care he needed.
Preston Johnson, on the other side of the ICU from Hunter, was also
among the four. Preston, 25, had periods of consciousness, but his
condition was unstable. He would bleed from his ears, nose and mouth;
then the bleeding would stop.
Doctors were unsure what was wrong with Preston, although they knew he
had suffered abdominal trauma during a fight. When Katrina hit, the
pathology remained uncertain, but an oncologist said he had some type
of lymphoma. They had started him on steroids, and the medication
seemed to be helping.
His mother, Carolyn Lewis, had brought him to Charity a month before
the storm. A former staff sergeant in the Air Force, Carolyn had been
living on the sixth floor ICU, sleeping in the waiting room when she
wasn't at her son's bedside reading Scripture, stroking him or
singing his favorite hymns. She was good medicine for him, the staff
felt. Every time she walked in, he perked up.
Waddell, who had helped care for Preston before the storm, had seen a
similar reaction when the young man's children came to visit. A
couple of weeks earlier, Preston had been so gravely ill that doctors
suggested his two little boys, 5 and 3, be summoned to see him. The
older one, nicknamed Bubba like his father, ran in and said, Daddy, are
you coming home, are you getting well? Preston opened his eyes and
smiled. Waddell was struck by how happy Carolyn was to see her son's
reaction.
The respiratory therapist was a little more optimistic about
Preston's prognosis than she was Hunter's. After the hospital lost
backup power, staff had begun weaning some patients from their
ventilators to see whether they could breathe on their own. Their
evacuation would be easier if the machines did not have to be moved
with them. Preston did fairly well in his trial off the ventilator.
Waddell knew the anguish Carolyn and Sherry felt. The mothers had
become close, and she understood why. One day, when Preston had taken a
sudden turn and seemed near death, she had spoken with his mother in
private.
Waddell wore a necklace with three gold charms: a little boy, a
football helmet and the words, "No. 1 Mom." She also wore a gold
cross - a gift from her son. For the first time, Waddell had told
Carolyn about Chris.
He would have been 20 this year.
On March 1, 2004, Christopher Waddell collapsed during football
practice and died from a heart attack. Losing her only child had been
life-altering. He was "a kind and gentle giant," she wrote for the
college athletics Web site a year after his death. His life was a
testimony "that it is possible to beat the odds by making the right
choices in life."
Carolyn was stunned by Waddell's loss. I would never get over that,
she thought. Her only child.
Waddell had told Carolyn gently that there could come a time when she,
too, might have to say goodbye to her son.
I know you don't want to see him suffer. So you may have to let him
go.
Once again, medical staff prepared patients to leave. This time, they
were determined to evacuate their four sickest, with or without
government help.
When it was time to take Hunter, Waddell knew she had to say goodbye.
She could not accompany him; patients here still needed her help. But
it was hard to let him go. She wanted to be there for Hunter because
she hadn't been able to be there for her son, Chris, when he died.
She didn't know whether Hunter could hear her, but she leaned over
his bed and whispered goodbye, squeezing his hand.
Tell Chris I love him. He's going to take care of you.
After strapping Hunter onto a spine board, doctors and nurses carried
him down five flights of stairs to the outside. His mother lighted the
way with a flashlight.
Then they prepared to move Preston. Carolyn watched as they wrapped
around his arm a wooden cross someone had made him. They slid a key
ring, with photos of his boys, around his middle finger.
Like everything in this operation, getting to Tulane from Charity would
be hit-or-miss. How would they move four very sick people through
channels of deep infested waters?
A Tulane employee had managed to float out in a canoe and flag down a
National Guard trooper with a truck big enough to navigate the
floodwaters. The trooper, who had lost contact with his unit, at first
hesitated to help. But with no radio to ask permission, he agreed to go
ahead.
Down on the ramp, Sherry jumped onto the truck with Hunter, but was
told to get off. She did not complain; she wasn't worried about
herself. Like Carolyn, the mother was thinking only of her son. She
kissed him goodbye.
Carolyn could not see Preston after they put him onto the back of the
truck. She asked whether she could go with him, knowing she was his
strength. No, they told her; she'd have to stay behind. A doctor and
a patient's father lifted her up so she could touch him. Mommy's
right here, * she told him. *I'm not going anywhere.
When he opened his eyes, she kissed her hand, then touched it to his
cheek. Crying, Carolyn told Preston she loved him.
The two mothers stood on the emergency room ramp, holding hands and
watching until the truck was out of sight. Each wondered: Will I ever
see him alive again?
ON THURSDAY: Trouble in the parking garage. Chapter 12 of 22.
Permalink | Comments (18) | Post your comment |
Comments
By doug...@hotmail.com
May 16, 2006 03:37 PM | Link to this
I've been reading each chapter, and as I read, I am filled
simultaneously with rage and despair that in the United States of
America, suffering and helplessness like this had to be endured for as
long as it did. This country and its' so-called leadership should
hold our collective heads in shame that we can do no better for our
fellow citizens. THIS IS AMERICA, GOD-DAMNIT! Can we really do no
better than some third-world, third rate hellhole civilization? Or does
it really not matter, because the people suffering were poor and the
wrong color to be worthy of compassion? SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!!!!!
By Antwon
May 16, 2006 04:49 PM | Link to this
Wonderful, wonderful story!
By
May 16, 2006 06:14 PM | Link to this
Heart wrenching what these people suffered through as the elected
officials took off their coat & tie, rolled up their sleeves and
proclaimed the end of conflict. Similar to another proclamation made
while people suffered and died.
By Jan
May 17, 2006 06:36 AM | Link to this
that is just heart breaking.......... I am in tears...............
By Maria Peagler
May 17, 2006 07:50 AM | Link to this
After reading this account of the government's inaction and lies, I
think former FEMA Director Browne should be held criminally negligent
in the deaths of residents of New Orleans. Losing his job was a slap on
the wrist;he should be held accountable and punished for the thousands
of people he stranded. He and Chertoff both were and are a disgrace to
the United States and our people, and George Bush should have sent a
message that our citizens deserve better and will never be left
stranded and helpless again.
By RWH
May 17, 2006 08:36 AM | Link to this
When mother nature or any accident such as the recent three hurrcanes,
you will see people go beyond the call of those who actually
responsible for situations such as Hurricanes Rita, Katrina, etc. What
we fail to realizes is...the sure facts that fovernment don't respond
as quickly as normal human-beings. It is sad to see so many lives lost,
people still displaced and struggling to live a normal life. Mothers,
sons, sisters and daughters...how noble can anyone be at the
dedications all of you have. I am sure, each of you will have it no
other way regardless of your situations you face to date. God Speed!
By Harmonie
May 17, 2006 09:06 AM | Link to this
Wow, everyday I read and everyday I feel a little more sick. America is
said to be this great country. I sit and think about how many times our
Presidents have gone across the water fighting for other countries and
their problems but yet when our own country is hit with devastation we
had NO form of organization to get our own people out of harms way. Why
are we at war again... oh really.... wow is all I can manage to say.
Jane story well told keep up the good work.
By PB
May 17, 2006 09:08 AM | Link to this
I am so overwhelmed. We all have heard Katrina stories but nothing like
what you are writing. I am so hurt by what these patients and hospital
staff suffered through. It is hard not to be mad as hell at all the
decision makers involved and their ability to not make things happen
sooner.
On a happier note, you as a journalist should be commended. You have an
amazing ability to make me feel like I am in the middle of Charity
Hospital. I hear, feel, and smell everything taking place. That is true
story telling at its finest. I do hope that your final chapters will be
an update on the key players of this series.
By DDM
May 17, 2006 09:44 AM | Link to this
I wonder if any elected officials, who were responsible for creating
and implementing emergancy procedures, have been reading this series.
If so, it would be nice if they would make a comment or two to justify
why this happened. The pain and suffering experienced is heart
wrenching!!!!
By LZB
May 17, 2006 09:54 AM | Link to this
I, too, am in tears. I traveled to New Orleans this past weekend and
was in tears while there too. As I drove by the Convention Center and
Superdome, I recalled the thousands of people who waited there for much
too long, for some of whom, death came before help did. Almost 8 months
later, the city still looks like a ravaged, war-torn nation. I also
drove by thousands of abandoned homes, which still have the markings on
the walls from the search and rescue workers. The stories and pictures
on the news simply could not depict the level of destruction that the
city endured. You must see it for yourself. I agree with dougie913.
Shame on the government. I take my hat off to the staff and family
members at the hospitals, who worked to keep the patients alive. Job
well done.
By Melva
May 17, 2006 10:17 AM | Link to this
This is such an awesome story. God Bless you for writing it. As for
what happen, It should have never happend like this. We as a Nation
should have been better prepared and I hope for everyone's sake than
next time and there will be a next time. We are better prepared than
this and something as been learned from the past. In my opionion all
Nursing Homes and Hospitals should have been evacuated. Why they were
not is beyond me.
By Madelyn
May 17, 2006 10:45 AM | Link to this
As a former patient of both Tulane and Charity (where I spent a week in
the critical care unit) I know first hand the huge discrepancies
between these two hospitals. I remember watching the evacuation of
Tulane thinking that Charity had once again become a victim of a greedy
and money-hungry medical system. But this series fills me with hope.
Hope that there are people in the world who understand that human life
cannot be assigned a price tag. Hope that the same nurses and doctors
who cared for me during my darkest hours were there to care for
hundreds of others in their darkest hours. Hope that this series will
cause people to understand how vital Charity Hospital has been for
hundreds of years, since it was founded to care for the poor people of
the city. Hope that Big Charity will open again to do "God's
work". Praise for those brave persons who were called upon to serve
during this catastrophe, and praise for the AJC for realizing the
important impact of this story.
By Florie Tucker
May 17, 2006 11:59 AM | Link to this
As a nurse who now works in developing federal government emergency
preparedness initiatives for medical response, I carefully watched the
impact of Katrina on New Orleans hospitals. I was moved to tears as
hospitals struggled to deal with totally unanticipated levels of
operational crisis, knowing patients were probably going to die. AJC
has done a powerful thing presenting the facts of this story, which
needed to be told, in a deeply moving manner. May all of us in the
health care system, public and private, as well as the government
response system, learn from this and never allow it to happen again.
By Charlotta
May 17, 2006 12:06 PM | Link to this
Props to Jane Hansen - this is awesome journalism in so many ways.
Beautifully told story. So well written. Every day I cannot wait for
the paper to arrive! And thank you so much for continuing to remind us,
not only of the disaster of what happened in New Orleans, but of how
we, every day, are forgetting the poor, how America is a country of and
for the rich. The same kinds of things, albeit on a different scale,
are happening right here in Atlanta today and every day at Grady -
Emory.
By Kevin Besse
May 17, 2006 12:49 PM | Link to this
I had the privilege of working in the Intensive Care Unit at Charity
Hospital from 1993-1998. I consider Celeste and Ben, and the other
staff at Charity to be heroes. It was truly agonizing not being able to
be there for friends and former colleagues during Katrina and after.
This is a story that needs to be told over and over again.
By Terry
May 17, 2006 02:49 PM | Link to this
My husband and I attended the second weekend of Jazzfest a couple of
weeks ago. After traveling to New Orleans for that wonderful
celebration for 19 years in a row, we couldn't believe our eyes. The
devastation and breathtaking sadness was as far as the eye can see.
During our visit we were approached several times by people who still
live in New Orleans. They wanted to thank us for being there, and in
every case they said, "Please go back and tell people how bad it is
here and that we need help." But for us the saddest thing that
happened was while we walked to the festival on the street that runs
next to the fairgrounds where the Fest takes place. We passed an
elderly man raking the layers of dirt that used to be his front yard.
His home was completely destroyed behind him, and a tiny FEMA trailer
sat in his side yard. Yet he greeted us with "We're so glad to see
y'all." And then he said, "I used to have flowers and grass in
this spot. I just hope that if I keep on diggin,' something good
might come up." I can't tell you how many times we were moved to
tears that weekend. Let it be known that I'm doing what I promised
the locals - New Orleans is, in fact, a war zone. No pictures or news
footage can accurately show the magnitude of the devastation. And nine
months later thousands of people are living in tiny FEMA trailers. And
they are the lucky ones. They have some hope of salvaging their homes.
On the other side of Lake Pontchartrain, where we stayed in a motel,
every single business is desperately looking for help. There just
aren't enough people anymore to do the work. I started reading this
series right after we returned from New Orleans, and I can't stop
myself from crying with each installment. There's one image that
keeps coming to mind from our recent trip. Painted on the front of two
destroyed, abandoned houses just yards apart on one street was "Dead
dog in garage" and "1 dead in dining room." That's going to
haunt me for a long time.
By Dave
May 17, 2006 02:59 PM | Link to this
The overriding message of this series is and must be this. "When a
disaster strikes, nobody is coming. We all need to have the
resourcefulness, courage, and determination, in that order, to take
care of ourselves, and each other." Waiting for the government to
come rescue us should never be anything but an option of last resort.
By
May 19, 2006 03:56 PM | Link to this
Yes, but our government can build schools and repave roads in Iraq?
James Zachary
CHAPTER 12: RESCUE OPERATION UNDER BATTLE CONDITIONS
By Jane O. Hansen | Wednesday, May 17, 2006, 01:44 PM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New Orleans - Tulane Avenue was the River Styx - as foul and
fearsome as the Greek mythological river of hell. Yet brave souls
crossed the waters from the public hospital to the private one, in
hopes of rescue.
Wednesday evening, Aug. 31, Dr. Ben deBoisblanc, nurse Dawn Pevey and
critical care resident Dr. Jeffrey Williams made the journey in the
back of a National Guard truck with four very ill patients.
Dr. Ben had chosen Hunter Reeves as the first to evacuate from Charity
Hospital, knowing the 23-year-old had a treatable condition but would
die without medical care.
He had Goodpasture's syndrome, an autoimmune disease causing his
body's antibodies to attack his lungs and kidneys. Several days
before Hurricane Katrina struck, his right lung had collapsed. As the
truck neared the ramp to Tulane Hospital's Saratoga Street parking
garage, Hunter's oxygen level plummeted. Dr. Ben and the others
suspected his other lung had collapsed.
There was no time to get him to a sterile emergency room. Under Dr.
Ben's supervision, Williams stuck a needle into Hunter's chest
wall. Air hissed out, confirming the doctor's hunch. Hunter was no
longer getting oxygen.
Four people would have to sit on Hunter's legs and body for what came
next. They had grabbed an emergency kit with surgical instruments
before leaving Charity, but had no anesthesia. They could only sedate
him lightly with medication.
Using a scalpel and guided by flashlight, Williams cut a 2-inch slit
near Hunter's left nipple, then inserted a tube between two ribs,
allowing the lung to expand. Dr. Ben assisted the young resident while
pinning down Hunter's flailing arms. It would have felt as if someone
were stabbing him in the chest with a knife, then wiggling it around
inside.
If the streets of New Orleans were hell, the skies above were
Armageddon. Helicopters flew in all directions; fires lit up the
horizon; gunfire erupted sporadically.
Some pilots stowed body armor - courtesy of the Hospital Corporation
of America and a police department - beneath their seats to stop
bullets aimed from below. Like the evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in
Saigon in 1975, the exodus from Tulane was a chopper-borne operation.
Oh, my God, this feels like a war, Tulane's chief nursing officer
would say, peering at the sky from the roof of the Tulane garage.
John Holland, the former military man acting as air traffic controller,
put his arm around her.
Honey, you are in a war, he said. It's just a different type.
If it felt like a war, it was also a well-honed military operation.
In two days, Tulane had set up a makeshift helipad, corralled nearly
two dozen helicopters, fashioned an air traffic control system,
organized patients into staging areas for evacuation, and arranged for
each to be transferred to another hospital so care would be continued.
By Wednesday night, most of Tulane's 178 patients were gone,
including 58 brought over from the Superdome before the storm.
It may not have been evident at the time, but when Dr. Ben and his
colleagues arrived that night from Charity, they left behind an
environment bordering on anarchy and stepped into a hierarchical system
in which people had followed commands and moved in lock step for two
days.
Frustration and anger had grown at Charity, where time and again
they'd been told the government was coming to rescue them. When the
owner of a Missouri-based helicopter company promised to send four
helicopters for Charity's sickest patients, Dr. Ben assumed those
choppers would be dedicated to his hospital. But it wouldn't work
that way.
When those from Charity arrived at the garage, they were told to stay
downstairs. For safety's sake, no one could be on the helipad except
those loading patients and bringing in aircraft.
As director of medical intensive care at Charity, Dr. Ben was used to
being in charge. He didn't like being told to wait anywhere.
Maybe the seeds of enmity weren't planted that night, just nurtured.
There had always been some bad blood between the hospitals. Tulane was
the for-profit facility owned by the wealthy Hospital Corporation of
America; Charity was the poor public stepchild, neglected by state
government, always short of cash, yet depended on to serve the city's
poor and forgotten.
After an hour, a truck came down to the first floor and carried Hunter
to the rooftop, where he was loaded onto a medevac and taken away. Then
the real waiting started.
For the next two to three hours, Dr. Ben and the others watched as
helicopters landed and departed while their three critical patients
suffered. One, 25-year-old Preston Johnson, began bleeding from the
nose and mouth.
Finally, Dr. Ben radioed Charity to find out what had happened to the
four promised helicopters - and learned they had come and gone. Other
than the medevac that took Hunter, evidently the other three had
carried out Tulane patients.
Dr. Ben was outraged. The government had abandoned them, and he felt
Tulane was doing the same.
Yelling, swearing, he ran to the roof and demanded that his patients be
evacuated immediately. They had no way back to Charity, and he was
frantic about their safety. Holland understood the doctor's
desperation. He was also aware that the physician knew nothing about
helicopters and rescue operations.
Doc, I'm on your side, Holland quietly told him.
Late Wednesday night, thanks to Holland's military contacts, a Black
Hawk that had no seats landed; it could take patients on stretchers.
Holland put Preston and the other two Charity patients on board. Dr.
Ben, Williams and nurse Pevey climbed in.
As they lifted off into the black, moonless night, Dr. Ben had a sense
of the surreal. The military pilot wore night vision goggles, and Dr.
Ben, wearing a headset, listened in on the communication in the
cockpit. OK, slide a little bit left. Slide a little bit right. The
buildings were so close, he felt he could reach out and touch them.
After about 10 minutes, Dr. Ben saw on the distant horizon what looked
like Emerald City. As the chopper drew closer, he spotted a familiar
sign for I-10. Then suddenly the sky lit up as they landed on a
cloverleaf bathed in blinding lights. It reminded him of the movie
"Apocalypse Now." The lights belonged to ambulances - dozens of
them - sitting on the highway.
Dr. Ben jumped out and approached a driver.
What are you guys doing here? he asked.
We're waiting.
How long have you been waiting?
For three days, the driver told him, for patients who had never come.
ON FRIDAY: Two mothers learn the fate of their sons. Chapter 13 of 22.
Comments
By janet
May 17, 2006 02:35 PM | Link to this
These stories are very touching. However, New Orleans wasn't the only
city affected by Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans was flooded. Bay St.
Louis, Pass Christian, Waveland, Gulfport and Biloxi beachfront was
leveled. But you never hear about any of that. Don't get me wrong,
everyone affected by this hurricane has a lot of healing and rebuilding
to do and I pray every day for all of them. I just wish the focus
weren't on one city.
By kevin
May 17, 2006 03:06 PM | Link to this
I had the privilege of working in the Intensive Care Unit at Charity
Hospital from 1993-1998. I consider Celeste and Ben, and the other
staff at Charity to be heroes. It was truly agonizing not being able to
be there for friends and former colleagues during Katrina and after.
This is a story that needs to be told over and over again.
By Renee
May 17, 2006 03:24 PM | Link to this
Each day I read the chapters and feel like I have to be reading a
fiction book. I have to fight back the tears when I realize what the
everyone involved went through. My heart and prayers go out to anyone
affected by Hurricane Katrina and I hope and pray that this doesn't
happen again and even if it does, we as a country are prepared to
handle whatever happens.
By Doug
May 17, 2006 03:55 PM | Link to this
To Janet: You are missing the point. The articles are not about how
Katrina effected one city, or another. The articles are about comparing
and contrasting how two competing hospitals handled the greatest
natural disaster to hit our country. Will you have a plan for your next
disaster, or will you (like Charity) choose to rely on our government
to intervene?
By JOSHUA
May 17, 2006 04:08 PM | Link to this
No offense to you Janet, but the focus isn't on many of the other
cities because they aren't huge metro areas with hundreds of
thousands of people who can't get out. It is ashame that your
beachfront condos and restaurants were destroyed...
By zig
May 17, 2006 04:14 PM | Link to this
The stories are beyond 'touching' and thank you Ms. Hansen for your
great writing. And no one has forgotten about the Mississippi & Alabama
Gulf Coasts as well as the folks in east Texas and western Louisiana as
a result of Rita. Some stories are meant to be told and this is one of
them. It just so happened to unfold in New Orleans. Believe me we all
wished it hadn't.
By denise walker
May 17, 2006 07:49 PM | Link to this
I am a Charity Hospital who has been displaced by Hurricane Katrina and
I understand fully Dr. Ben's frustration. Charity Hospital has ALWAYS
been treated like a stepchild and Tulane the "golden" child. The
patients at Charity have always been at the bottom of the todem pole
because of their level of poverty and lack of private insurance, but
the doctors and nurses of Charity have more heart and compassion than
the entire staff of the "private" sector put together. Ms. Janet I
am so glad and grateful that you care enough to even address this
horific nightmare that the people of the gulf coast have had to endure.
Thank you!
By Linda
May 18, 2006 12:28 AM | Link to this
I'm so glad to see the story of Charity being told. I worked there
for nearly 10 years, having left last May to move cross country. I felt
helpless after the storm. I was able to get through by phone to my old
unit, where the situation was dire. I was one of several providing some
connection to the outside world. I'll never forget having to tell my
friends that CNN was reporting they had been evacuated. In reality they
were running out of food & afraid they had been completely forgotten.
But through it all that "only at Charity" mindset prevailed. In the
lobby is a sign: Charity Hospital: where the unusual occurs & miracles
happen This story helps to demonstrate that spirit. The staff of W-900
did everything in their power to keep up their spirits & those of the
patients & families in their care. They found ways to keep themselves
entertained to help pass the time & lighten the mood, even while
desperately trying to ensure the safety of their very ill patients.
They made banners to hang outside to remind anyone who could see that
they were still there & would not give up hope. I'm so proud of all
of them while incredibly saddened by the horrors they experienced & the
uncertainty of the future of that spectacular hospital.
By Gene
May 18, 2006 12:52 AM | Link to this
I understand what you mean amd it hits me at times too. After coming
back from Tulane, my son and I were sent to Mississippi a couple of
weeks later. I had seen the devastation from the air as we flew the
coast from Pensacola to New Orleans, but nothing prepared us for the
total hell that awaited us on the ground in Waveland. We spent a week
working there with the Florida State EOC and I cried as we got on
interstate 10 to head back to Florida because there was so much left to
do. I understand what you are saying, but Jane is writing a very
limited story about an action that took place in a theater full of
facinating stories...not all of which can possibly be told in even a
single newspaper, let alone one story.
By Abbi
May 18, 2006 08:11 AM | Link to this
Jane, This is an outstanding series. It's hard to wait for the next
chapter to appear each day. Kudos to you and the AJC for doing this.
By Sister of a Katrina Victim
May 18, 2006 10:41 AM | Link to this
Joshua, how dare you imply that everyone on the Mississippi Gulf Coast
just had a condo or restaurant destroyed. ALL the businesses are
damaged or destroyed. Those "condos" were homes, not vacation
homes. My sister's home (not a condo on the beach) was 27 feet under
water and has yet to be rebuilt. They are facing another hurricane
season in a trailer!
I understand that this article is about the two hospitals in NO, but NO
has received the bulk of the press. Mississippi and Alabama are
devastated because of a hurricane, not a flood they were unprepared
for!
By karen
May 18, 2006 12:08 PM | Link to this
I lived in New Orleans for 15 years - went to grad school at Tulane and
worked at Charity Hospital. I have family in New Orleans and
Mississippi. This is an amazing series of articles about a catastrophe.
Don't forget the coast of Mississippi!
By living in fl
May 18, 2006 12:36 PM | Link to this
Please people stop whining about who, what, when, where. There is never
one entity that can tell the whole story. Take this story for what it
is. A story depiciting what happened at Tulane and Charity. We must
understand and have compassion. I reside in sunny Florida. I have been
fortunate since moving here to always miss the worse. I do not believe
that my luck will last forever and therefore am preparing for this
hurricane season. I always thought that I would be able to pack up and
go to a shelter or some place for shelter but this story has opened my
eyes. I MUST BE PREPARED TO SAVE MYSELF AND MY FAMILY COME HELL OR HIGH
WATER!!!!!!!! Please, read, refelect on what and who are important.
Yes, I sympathize with everyone who lost something or someone during
that tragedy but please keep in mind that loss is a part of life and we
must all be responsible for ourselves.
James Zachary
CHAPTER 13: TWO MOTHERS' SUSPENSE, DOCTOR'S S.O.S.
By Jane O. Hansen | Thursday, May 18, 2006, 01:08 PM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New Orleans - Wednesday evening, Aug. 31, Sherry Hebert and Carolyn
Lewis watched from a window at Charity Hospital as helicopters landed
and took off across the street. They had no way of knowing whether
their sons were aboard any of the rescue craft - or, if they were,
whether they would survive the trip.
All the mothers could do was wait - and pray. Stuck inside the
hospital and exhausted, they fell asleep in the sixth-floor waiting
room.
Nurse Dawn Pevey found them there about 1:30 a.m. Thursday. Sitting
down with the women, Pevey told Sherry they had almost lost her son
Hunter while taking him by truck to the helipad at Tulane Hospital. His
second lung had collapsed, and doctors had performed an emergency
procedure to save his life. Dr. Jeffrey Williams had to insert a tube
into Hunter's chest. Sherry cried.
He's OK. He's OK, Pevey assured her. Hunter was still fighting. He
had been airlifted to Lafayette, where doctors had stabilized him. From
there, he had been flown to Earl K. Long Medical Center, another of the
state's public hospitals, in Baton Rouge.
Pevey turned to Carolyn. Her son Preston also had experienced trouble
after leaving Charity, the nurse said. His blood pressure had dropped
while he waited to be flown out from the Tulane parking garage. Pevey
told Carolyn he was on his way by ambulance to a hospital in Baton
Rouge. She wasn't sure which facility. At daybreak she would call and
try to find him.
After grabbing some sleep, Pevey called all three major hospitals in
Baton Rouge, asking whether Preston Johnson had been brought there. No,
each said. Pevey was puzzled. Then it dawned on her what might have
happened. She would call the hospitals back - and this time ask a
different question.
Early Thursday morning, Dr. Ben deBoisblanc - director of Charity's
medical ICU - crossed over to Tulane Hospital on a boat piloted by
the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. The night before,
he had overseen the evacuation of his four most critically ill patients
from the parking garage roof. He was desperate to rescue more.
[ · See map of evacuation]
Dr. Ben arrived at "the beach," as the Tulane people called the
entrance to their Saratoga Street parking garage, where the water
lapped along the bottom of the first-floor ramp. He rode by pickup
truck to the roof, where he met with John Holland, the Emory LifeNet
pilot and former Army colonel who had taken charge of the helipad.
Dr. Ben told Holland his hospital was in a meltdown. It could get no
response from the government, and it had critically ill patients on
ventilators who would die if it did not get help soon.
How many? Holland asked the physician.
21.
How are you going to get them over here?
I came by boat.
Sir, how long will it take you to get your patients over here?
Two or three hours.
OK, get them over here. Take them to the next level down.
Holland was assisted on the roof by Sharif Omar, a Tulane associate
vice president, and Kim Graham, director of pediatric services and a
nurse. They ran from one end of the garage to the other, up and down
stairs, guiding patients up the ramp and onto the choppers. By
Thursday, Omar was running on adrenaline, having slept only a few
hours, and his feet had developed painful blisters from the
loose-fitting tennis shoes he wore. In the mornings, Graham wrapped his
feet in gauze. When she changed the dressing at night, the flesh was
raw. Eventually a doctor would give Omar pain pills.
Though Holland was at the mercy of the pilots and the type of aircraft
they flew, he was not averse to pleading. When a pilot told him he was
nearing his limit of 12 hours on duty and this would be his last
transport, Holland cajoled him: Just give me one more run.
After talking to Dr. Ben, Holland directed the Charity physician to
clear the evacuation plan with those in charge: Mel Lagarde, a Hospital
Corporation of America division president, and Jim Montgomery,
president of Tulane Hospital.
Montgomery could see that Dr. Ben was worn-out and panicked. He asked
what the state was doing to help. They're not engaged, Dr. Ben said.
Montgomery asked where Dwayne Thomas, Charity's CEO, was. Thomas was
at University Hospital and out of touch, Dr. Ben told him.
Lagarde and Montgomery knew that evacuating Charity's patients would
slow the rescue of their own people. They still had 19 patients and 700
staff and their families to get out. But they had to respond. Helping
Charity was the right thing to do.
About the time Dr. Ben left for Tulane, nurse Pevey finally located the
hospital where Preston had been taken.
After Hunter was evacuated from the Tulane garage Wednesday night,
Preston and two other patients had waited more than two hours for
another chopper.
At first, Preston had done all right in the garage. But after a couple
of hours, he had begun to fail. His blood pressure fell. Blood oozed
from his nose and mouth. He needed blood, and the hospitals had run
out.
Finally, a Black Hawk that could take stretcher patients had arrived on
the roof. When it landed at the I-10 interchange, an ambulance crew
from east Texas had seen how grave Preston's condition was. Their
vehicle was equipped with a ventilator, and they had offered to take
him.
Williams had climbed in back with Preston for the hour-plus trip to
Baton Rouge General. When they arrived, the receiving physician had
taken Preston to the intensive care unit and ordered platelets, blood
transfusions and a series of tests. Once Williams told him how long
Preston had been in shock, the physician ordered a blood gas test to
determine his viability. The result: "incompatible with life."
It was as if Preston had been undergoing CPR for hours. Any further
efforts at resuscitation, the doctors had concluded, would be futile
and cruel.
In Baton Rouge, Williams had no way to contact Pevey or the others who
had returned to Charity. But the next morning Pevey figured out what
had happened.
The first time she had called the Baton Rouge hospitals, she had asked
whether they had a patient by the name of Preston Johnson. The second
time, she asked whether they had a Preston Johnson in their morgue.
Late Thursday morning, Charity patients began arriving at the Tulane
garage by boat. Under the rules of triage, they would leave the rooftop
based on the severity of their condition. That meant some Charity
patients would go out before Tulane patients. Among those put at the
front of the line was a 2-day-old infant with a severe infection, along
with her mother and grandmother.
The open garage, transformed into a makeshift ICU, was littered with
sick people. Charity residents and nurses knelt beside their patients
on the concrete floor and manually squeezed the bags that pumped air
into their lungs. Tulane nurses, in line to be evacuated, jumped in and
helped.
Patients' tracheotomy tubes were beginning to clog, and there was no
way to suction them. Oxygen supplies were running low. A man who had
suffered a stroke before the storm gasped for air. A resident quickly
intubated him, performing a delicate procedure that required threading
a lifesaving tube down the throat and into the lung.
Dr. Ben had risked patients' lives by ferrying them over on boats
amid gunfire. Now they suffered in the heat of the parking garage,
waiting to lift off into a sky grown increasingly dangerous with
unmonitored air traffic. He felt the full weight of responsibility.
Tulane's chief nursing officer ran into her hospital to scavenge for
oxygen tanks. Someone on the Tulane staff found a portable generator
and set up a "suck out station" where the tubes of Charity patients
could be cleaned out, allowing them to breathe.
For patients who were conscious, the vibrating roar of the helicopters
just one floor above could not have been comforting. Yet as sick as
they were, many expressed gratitude to the nurses, residents,
respiratory therapists and doctors who had gone days with little sleep,
food or water. Some patients even tried to relieve the health care
workers by hand-bagging themselves.
An elderly woman in her 80s, labeled with a handwritten sign that said
"Fractured Hip," waved over emergency medicine resident Granville
Morse. He thought she needed something, but when he leaned over to
listen, she gave him a kiss.
Dr. Ben watched the Charity residents and nurses with awe. The field
hospital they had created was a marvel; he was proud of their patience
and dedication.
But as the afternoon wore on, his temper would flare.
Tensions in the garage were rising. Soon, they would explode.
Accompanied by a physician, Pevey returned Thursday morning to the
waiting room on Charity's sixth floor and asked everyone but Carolyn
to step into the hallway.
Hunter's mother, Sherry, knew then that Preston had not survived.
Standing in the hall, she heard Carolyn sob at the news.
Pevey told Carolyn that her son had been pronounced dead at a hospital
in Baton Rouge. When Sherry went back into the waiting room, she
didn't know what to say to comfort her friend. Only hours earlier the
two mothers had held hands and watched their sons leave, hoping and
praying they were going to a better place. A shy, reserved woman,
Sherry felt so bad knowing her son had made it and Carolyn's had not.
Pevey went to find Celeste Waddell. The respiratory therapist, who had
cared for both Hunter and Preston, was in the empty cardiac care unit,
now substituting as a sleeping area for staff.
Preston died, Pevey told her.
Waddell sat still for a minute, then began to cry. Forgive me, she said
silently to Preston. I tried. Everybody tried.
Waddell found Carolyn in the waiting room, being comforted by Sherry
and other patients' family members. The women walked together down
the hall to the chapel, located at the other end of the sixth floor.
They sat there for about 45 minutes. Waddell told Carolyn to brace
herself. In their ignorance, people would say stupid things. They just
don't know what to say. Don't let anybody tell you how you should
feel.
Waddell told her she knew how acutely painful it was to lose her son.
She had lost her own son, Chris, just the year before, at the age of
18. But you don't want him to suffer, Waddell said of Preston. And
he's not suffering anymore.
Then Waddell told Carolyn one more thing. Her son, Chris, would take
care of Preston. Everything's going to be all right
James Zachary
CHAPTER 14: ROOFTOP BLOWUP AS FEARS FOR PATIENTS MOUNT
By Jane O. Hansen | Friday, May 19, 2006, 12:56 PM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New Orleans - John Holland, the Georgia pilot running the Tulane
Hospital helipad, wrote down the precise number of critical patients
Dr. Ben deBoisblanc said he needed to evacuate from Charity Hospital:
21.
But on Thursday, Sept. 1, more than 30 crowded into Tulane's parking
garage - and not all were on ventilators or stretchers. Some were
able to walk. And one was a prisoner.
Jim Montgomery, president of Tulane, was livid. He still had the last
of his own patients to get out, as well as 700 hospital employees and
their family members, including 100 children.
Some of his employees were not pleased that Charity people were
interrupting their own long-awaited rescue, especially nonmedical staff
who did not understand the crisis patients faced. With many helicopters
taking only one or two people at a time, the evacuation was, in the
words of one doctor, like emptying a swimming pool with a teacup.
When Montgomery heard that the number of Charity patients was growing
and some weren't even on stretchers, he left the command post and
headed for the garage.
You told me it was going to be 21 patients; you got 33, Montgomery said
to Dr. Ben. I told you we'd take critically ill patients, and people
who are ambulatory are coming over here.
One was a prisoner who had gone without dialysis for nearly a week, a
life-threatening condition. Like Grady in Atlanta, Charity was where
sick inmates were taken for treatment.
Dr. Ben radioed back to Charity. Do not bring any more patients.
They're not taking any more.
To Dr. Ben, the rejection was another reminder of his hospital's
second-class status. The Tulane administrators didn't care about
Charity patients. They were simply in the way.
Montgomery saw it differently. So did Mel Lagarde, the Hospital
Corporation of America executive who had stationed himself at Tulane.
They'd been airlifting patients for two days. They had a process that
was working. They had rules everyone was following, and they weren't
about to let Dr. Ben take control.
Dr. Ben was the passionate physician frantic to save his patients.
Lagarde was the coolheaded corporate leader who had helped put in
motion an effective rescue operation.
What would play out that day in the Tulane garage occurred against a
backdrop of competing cultures, different perspectives and the fear of
losing lives.
>From one vantage, a private hospital stepped in to do what the
government had not: It rescued the sickest and most helpless.
The other view said the have-nots were first abandoned by their
government, then relegated to second-class status as the haves put
their own safety above the lives of the have-nots.
Two hospitals. Two universes. And they were on a collision course.
It was the arrival of a military Black Hawk that touched off the
showdown.
The Charity staff had been told the military was sending Black Hawks to
the Tulane roof to evacuate their patients. But when one landed that
afternoon, Charity staff watched as Tulane employees boarded to a round
of applause.
Dr. Ben ran to the rooftop, yelling at Holland and anyone he could
grab. He accused Tulane administrators of hijacking helicopters
intended for Charity, while his staff hand-ventilated patients who had
waited hours in the hot, stuffy garage.
Lagarde, who was on the roof, knew the physician was desperate, and he
understood why. He had gone down to the seventh-floor holding area and
surveyed the scene of sick Charity patients lying on the floor. He'd
ordered Tulane staff to find additional oxygen cylinders for patients
who were running out. But Dr. Ben kept accusing him of not giving
priority to Charity patients, of not understanding how ill they were.
After the Black Hawk took off, Lagarde braced himself. But as the
enraged physician walked up to him, the calm executive also lost his
cool. Red-faced, standing nose to nose with Dr. Ben, Lagarde yelled
back,
These are our helicopters. Where are yours?
With a walkie-talkie in each hand, Dr. Ben screamed into both, not
knowing who might be listening. Get some helicopters down here NOW!
>From their staging area one floor below, the Charity staff had seen
only one thing: Healthy adults leaving before their very sick patients.
They didn't know that the Black Hawk had seats and could take only
people who could sit up. It could not - and its military pilot would
not - take patients on stretchers.
They didn't know that another helicopter they had watched fill up
with able-bodied people had been contracted by Hibernia National Bank
to take away 40 bank employees. Tulane had agreed the day before to let
the bank use its rooftop as a landing site.
The whole atmosphere angered the Charity crew. Their experience in the
garage magnified the fundamental difference between the two hospitals.
Tulane could pick up a phone, call HCA and anticipate a cavalry of
resources. Charity could pick up a phone and call CNN.
Another difference between them was in the arrangements they had made
for their patients once they were evacuated. Tulane's leaders
considered it imperative to know where patients were going and had
taken great pains to line up receiving hospitals. But Charity staff
were at a different level of desperation. All they cared about was
getting their patients out.
A quarrel broke out when a Tulane pediatric surgeon defended the
helicopter operation, and Dr. Granville Morse, an emergency medicine
resident at Charity, argued back.
I don't know what your problem is, the Tulane surgeon said to Morse.
Nobody would transport critically ill people in a school bus. They
would put them in an ambulance. Some of these helicopters weren't
outfitted to take patients, the surgeon said.
Is your parking garage outfitted to be an ICU? Morse yelled back. Can
you honestly say these patients are better off here?
Holland sympathized with the Charity staff. He knew they couldn't see
the whole picture. They didn't understand that most pilots had no way
of knowing which people they were supposed to carry. All they had were
the coordinates for Tulane and where they would be headed. Holland also
knew that the evacuation of Charity's critical patients would take
time. Two days earlier, it had taken 18 hours to evacuate the most
critical of Tulane's patients.
Holland assured Dr. Ben he was on his side, and the physician believed
it, but he was not a patient man, and he was used to being in control.
He kept returning to the roof, demanding someone pay attention to him.
He believed that out of sight, Charity patients remained out of mind.
Late Thursday afternoon, Dr. Ben's worst fear became a reality.
A patient in her mid-50s, suffering from emphysema, grew short of
breath. Miss Mabel was one of the nursing home patients found earlier
in the week by the National Guard and brought to Charity.
Although she had a tracheotomy and was on a ventilator, she had been
alert and able to communicate before Charity staff brought her to the
garage. Her biggest concern was making sure her family knew where she
was.
In the Tulane garage, as they waited for a helicopter, Miss Mabel
became increasingly unstable. Without monitoring equipment, the medical
personnel had no way to anticipate the crisis, nor could they diagnose
exactly what was going on. One theory was the anxious woman's airway
had become blocked by a mucous plug. About 4 that afternoon, a resident
cradled Miss Mabel in his arms as she took her last breath.
Dr. Ben had not expected Miss Mabel to die. Had the woman been
evacuated in a more timely fashion, he believed her death might have
been prevented.
Then, a second crisis arose with another nursing home patient - an
elderly man who had been cared for in the fourth-floor unit where
student nurse Susan Sanborn worked. On the Tulane rooftop, Holland had
just loaded him onto a helicopter when his heart stopped. Holland made
the difficult decision to take his body off the helicopter. They had to
make room for someone else.
At the height of the chaos, a CNN reporter and cameraman arrived on the
Tulane helipad.
A shrill Dr. Ben shouted into the reporter's microphone, "Two of
them have already died here on this ramp waiting to get out!"
They had died because Tulane was evacuating its own staff before
Charity's patients, he told the reporter.
At the end of the day, when the doctor appeared on the roof with a
bullhorn, Holland took it from him, then had him removed. Dr. Ben was
escorted to the seventh floor, where a Tulane police officer blocked
his return with an M-16.
James Zachary
CHAPTER 15: SCAVENGING FOR FOOD, FEARING FOR THEIR SAFETY
By Jane O. Hansen | Saturday, May 20, 2006, 05:44 PM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New Orleans - Susan Sanborn heard the sound but wasn't sure what it
was. It came from somewhere outside Charity Hospital. Was someone
setting off fireworks?
Sanborn looked at another nurse, and he answered her question before
she could ask it.
Yeah, that's what it is, he said.
Gunshots.
For all the devastation it had done to Charity, the 5-foot-deep
floodwater protected the hospital like a moat around a castle. Sanborn
began to worry about what would happen when the water receded. People
might storm the hospital - there were rumors of armed gangs.
On Thursday morning, Sept. 1, Sanborn's unit got the order yet again:
Prepare for evacuation. Staff pinned to each patient's gown a plastic
biohazard specimen bag that held a medication list, a discharge summary
from the physician and the name of the person's next of kin. Under
the critical patients' arms, they tucked paper bags filled with three
days' worth of medicine.
More than 48 hours after losing their emergency power, Charity doctors
had abandoned hope that the government would come. They had begun
taking patients by boat to Tulane Hospital's parking garage to be
flown out by helicopter. But Sanborn had no idea where they were going
or who would care for them. She assumed someone had arranged for their
continued medical care. But she still worried about their fate.
The student nurse's dedication to Charity patients extended to the
institution itself. She was so proud of her hospital. She knew a few
co-workers didn't feel the same attachment. They considered Charity a
hellhole.
So what if it wasn't a new, shiny, state-of-the-art hospital? Sanborn
loved the rough-and-ready place, a Bellevue of the South that served
the neediest. She felt at home there. Her own childhood had been tough,
and she knew what it was like to be abandoned and live on welfare. Some
of her patients shared similar backgrounds, and she didn't mind
giving back to people like herself.
One of her patients was a native of Ecuador, an illegal immigrant who
had come to this country to make a better life for his family back
home. Then he had been in a car accident and lost his leg below the
knee. On the note she pinned to him, Sanborn wrote: Next of kin: U.S.
Department of Homeland Security. Please try to find his family.
The staff had run out of spine boards for carrying patients down to the
ramp outside Charity's emergency room. When a resident asked Sanborn
whether she had a screwdriver, she broke into a nurse's locker to get
one. The resident removed the legs from tables, and they taped patients
to the tabletops.
After she helped carry down all the unit's patients, Sanborn sat down
and cried out of exhaustion and relief. Among those who had gotten out
were two elderly men from a nursing home who had been dropped off at
Charity earlier in the week. They had arrived on ventilators, unable to
talk and with no medical records. Sanborn felt particularly protective
of the men - one black, one white - whom the staff, not knowing
their names, had dubbed Ebony and Ivory.
All nine of her unit's patients were going to make it, she believed.
They were going to live.
The patients were gone from Sanborn's unit by 1 p.m. Thursday. But
word began to filter through the hospital that there was no plan to
evacuate Charity's staff and faculty.
Some staff members called Don Smithburg, CEO of the state's public
hospitals, in tears. Smithburg had been at the state command post all
week in Baton Rouge. He understood their despair and felt angry and
frustrated by his inability to effect their rescue. Some were young and
fresh out of school. This was the first disaster they'd faced. They
felt helpless, forgotten and afraid.
With the patients gone, the goal on Sanborn's unit was to set up
camp. With no water pressure, she and another nurse devised a makeshift
toilet. They found a bedside commode, then searched for plastic bags to
line it.
Sanborn had come to the hospital prepared to ride out the storm, with
cans of tuna fish, crackers, peanut butter and water. Others had done
the same. And at least once a truck had dropped off some packaged food.
Now Sanborn made trips to vacated areas of the hospital, scavenging for
half-used jugs of water, granola bars and other food that had been left
behind.
Remaining on the unit were Sanborn, eight nurses and two of their
children. How can we shut down the unit so we're safe? her supervisor
asked.
Even if the floodwaters did not recede, they began to fear that those
inside the hospital were growing as desperate for food and water as
those outside. Sanborn didn't mind sharing her provisions; she just
didn't want anyone to hurt her for them.
They locked what doors they could, then moved tables and chairs against
them. The main entrance could not be locked, so they set up a barricade
of supply carts. If anyone entered, at least they would hear them.
Like most public hospitals, Charity had holding cells for prisoners
requiring medical care. The nurses asked one of the prison guards
whether he would mind sleeping in their unit. When he said he had six
handguns, Sanborn asked him something she had never before
contemplated:
Can you teach me to shoot?
James Zachary
CHAPTER 16: AN EXODUS IN SLOW MOTION
By Jane O. Hansen | Sunday, May 21, 2006, 04:04 PM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New Orleans - Nerves frayed as the city slipped toward anarchy. By
Thursday afternoon, Sept. 1, it felt to Mel Lagarde as though security
around Tulane Hospital was breaking down.
Gunfire could be heard on the streets. There were reports from law
enforcement that gangs were targeting hospitals. He had to protect his
people.
As a division president for Tulane's corporate owner, the Hospital
Corporation of America, Lagarde was responsible for the hundreds of
people still inside the hospital. Tulane had requested security from
the state command post in Baton Rouge, but there was no sign of the
National Guard.
That night, Lagarde made the decision to move everyone out of the
hospital and into Tulane's Saratoga Street parking garage. With fewer
entrances and exits to secure, Tulane guards would have an easier time
protecting them. Since Tuesday, the garage roof had served as a landing
zone for helicopters. The floors below were a staging area, so patients
and staff could move quickly to the rooftop once a chopper landed.
But moving everyone into the garage was risky. Pulling the security
force out of the interior of the hospital meant they would no longer be
able to prevent people from breaking in. They would need to seal the
doors back into the hospital, and that would cut off further access to
supplies.
Lagarde knew this was a point of no return, and he struggled with the
decision. If he moved everyone to the garage and they weren't
airlifted out soon, he worried he would begin to lose control. He also
feared he would start losing patients because of the heat. Yet through
it all, he remained calm. His faith kept him focused.
Lagarde had risen fast and early as a corporate executive. But it was
his faith, as much as his business success, that defined him. The
Catholic Church was central to his life, as it was to his wife,
parents, grandparents and siblings.
In his early 20s, just as he was about to launch his career, Lagarde
felt his faith had not matured. He knew little more about religion than
he'd learned in catechism school. In pursuing a deeper faith, he
regained a quiet commitment that hadn't waned. It was a part of
Lagarde, a self-effacing man, that not everyone knew.
In the past five years, he had become friends with New Orleans Mayor
Ray Nagin. The two were charter members of the city's chapter of
Legatus, an international Catholic organization that brings together
CEOs and other executives to discuss how they can live out their faith
in their professions. Lagarde rose to president of that, too.
He may have seen himself as a behind-the-scenes guy. But he was
comfortable as a leader. In the midst of crisis, his confidence
inspired those around him.
Lagarde knew Tulane's helicopter rescue needed to move faster.
Feeding Charity Hospital patients into the evacuation had slowed it
down. Intermittent fog, rain and lightning - as well as shooting -
had also interrupted the flow. And now there were problems at the
airport.
Earlier, HCA had set up a staging area at Louis Armstrong International
Airport. Lagarde, a member of the New Orleans Aviation Board, had
pulled some strings by calling the airport's executive director. But
Thursday, as HCA's copters dropped off evacuees, officials from the
Federal Emergency Management Agency commandeered a number of their
medevacs. The day before they had grabbed four.
Lagarde put an end to it. The next time a government official tries to
take one of our choppers, he told a Tulane executive stationed at the
airport, tell him this: I'm sorry, but you can't do that. This
aircraft has already been commandeered by someone else.
It worked.
By Thursday afternoon, though, HCA executives in Nashville had made the
decision to abandon the airport as a staging area for their patients.
Others had begun to use it as a makeshift hospital and triage center,
and conditions were deteriorating. Hundreds of sick, moaning people lay
on the floor or on baggage conveyor belts. Many were elderly, alone and
confused. There weren't enough doctors, nurses or security officers.
Intravenous bags were empty. Feces were smeared on the floor.
Generator-powered fans made it cold, yet some patients were naked.
HCA felt the situation was dangerous. Instead of evacuating patients to
the airport, then moving them by ground, it would fly them to an HCA
hospital in Covington, La.
Wherever the helicopters would fly, however, they couldn't get
everyone out quickly enough; most could carry only one or two people at
a time.
Lagarde began to focus on the big beautiful bird he saw for the first
time flying overhead. It was a military chopper, a Chinook, and it
could carry up to 40 seated passengers and 12 patients on stretchers.
If only they could get the attention of the military.
Police Cmdr. Dan Bitton had been flying Tulane rescue missions since
Wednesday night. He, too, was concerned that the operation was too
slow. His aircraft was not equipped for stretcher patients, only those
who could sit up. And it could take only four to seven at a time,
depending on their weight.
Bitton, a commander with the Winthrop Harbor Police Department north of
Chicago, had no affiliation with HCA or Tulane. But he had served in
Vietnam in the Army, and he didn't hesitate to use his military
contacts.
On Thursday, without authorization, Bitton landed his chopper at Eagle
Base, the military command post at the Superdome, where he told the
officer in charge that the situation at Tulane was urgent. There were
Charity patients being kept alive by nurses who had been manually
ventilating them for days. Hundreds of Tulane employees and their
families were also trapped. The military needed to dedicate two
Chinooks and two Black Hawks to Tulane. Now.
The military officer may not have appreciated Bitton's directness,
but he turned to an aide.
Can you get the commander the helicopters? he said.
Yes, sir.
The officer told Bitton he could expect his Chinook on the roof of the
Tulane garage at 1700 hours - 5 p.m.
But how would they land it?
At HCA headquarters in Nashville, the design and construction staff had
tried to calculate whether the rooftop could support a 55,000-pound
machine that stretched 99 feet from rotor tip to rotor tip.
Bitton knew it would be a difficult approach. The pilots would have to
clear the concrete lip around the top of the garage, then rest only
enough of the aircraft's weight on the ground to stabilize the
chopper. The back wheels would go down, the front wheels barely
touching. It was a huge risk. He discussed the landing at length with
the officer and told him to let the crew know he would wave them off if
he felt it wasn't safe.
As 5 p.m. approached, Bitton, back at Tulane, started looking at his
watch. He'd gone out on a limb, assuring the doctors from both
hospitals that the Chinook would be there. Lagarde was waiting on the
roof, in communication by phone with HCA headquarters. He worried about
the patients underneath. What if concrete fell on them?
At 5:01, a huge helicopter came up over the buildings, like the
extraterrestrial spaceship that arrived to rescue E.T. What a beautiful
thing, Bitton thought to himself. Now it would be "kick ass" moving
people out.
As the Chinook landed, the rooftop shuddered even under the partial
weight of the giant chopper. The crowd in the garage erupted into
cheers. HCA executives, who were huddled around a speakerphone in their
boardroom, could hear the vibrating rumble of the Chinook all the way
back in Nashville. They too broke out in applause.
James Zachary
Chapter 17: BIRTHDAY OF LIFETIME -- AND AN UNEXPECTED GIFT
By Jane O. Hansen | Monday, May 22, 2006, 12:44 PM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New Orleans - When Charity Hospital administrators asked for
volunteers to escort patients across the street, then ride out with
them on military helicopters, Granville Morse was one of the first to
raise his hand.
Man, take care of patients and ride on a Black Hawk? said the emergency
medicine resident. What could be better?
Others volunteered, but they all agreed "Granny" should go. This
was his 34th birthday.
It was Thursday, Sept. 1, and for the first time that week, something
the Charity staff had been told would happen finally did. Two military
trucks with beds that sat high off the ground showed up to help
evacuate the hospital's sickest patients, ferrying them across the
water to Tulane Hospital's parking garage.
One of the patients was a boy named Jacob, about 8, who had been
dropped off at Charity earlier in the week, along with five other
critically ill patients from a nursing home. He had a feeding tube in
his stomach and a tracheotomy for a tube into his lungs. He had no
parents or other relatives by his side.
In Tulane's stifling garage, Morse helped care for Jacob and other
Charity patients. He was there when two of them died. And like Dr. Ben
deBoisblanc, who had led the exodus from Charity, he watched as
helicopters landed and took off from the rooftop, not with critical
Charity patients but with healthy Tulane people.
Finally, at about 9:30 Thursday night, a Black Hawk arrived that could
take three patients who could sit up and two on stretchers. One would
be Jacob.
Who knows the patient? the man in charge of air traffic asked.
Morse raised his hand.
You're going, the man said.
Morse climbed aboard the aircraft, and they began loading the patients.
But Jacob's spine board would not fit.
Just hand him to me, Morse said. Jacob was soaked in urine and sweat.
Morse cradled the child in his arms.
Although it was dark, the young resident got his first glimpse of
Katrina's devastation that night as the helicopter headed for Louis
Armstrong International Airport. Like others at Charity, his isolation
had kept him from knowing the scope of the disaster. He cried as they
flew over the city.
He could see tiny lights below - the flashlights of people still
trapped on rooftops, waving for help.
The evacuation continued late into the night. John Holland would not
rest until he got all of Charity's critical patients out. The Georgia
pilot had arrived the day before and volunteered to run air traffic
control on the Tulane roof. If a military chopper with no seats landed,
he put as many Charity stretchers on board as it could hold.
It was a painstaking process, just as it had been two days earlier when
they evacuated Tulane's critically ill patients. Chinooks, which
could each hold 50 to 60 passengers, had suddenly quit coming. Jim
Montgomery, Tulane Hospital's president, heard from his daughter that
Gov. Kathleen Blanco had just announced Tulane had been completely
evacuated. She was only off by about 400 people, he thought.
Holland got on the pilot's radio in the aircraft he had flown in on
from Georgia. This is an emergency, he said. Could someone please come
get these patients?
To Holland, it was the good Lord who then sent the Coast Guard. It was
after midnight when its chopper arrived. Holland loaded the last three
of Charity's sickest patients; two were on ventilators.
After the Coast Guard chopper lifted off, there was silence on the
rooftop. Many of those remaining broke down. The more than 30 critical
Charity patients who had come to the Tulane parking garage before noon
were finally gone. It had taken a little more than 12 hours to evacuate
them. All but two had survived.
Under a starry night, about a dozen exhausted Charity staff lay down to
sleep on the concrete floor of the parking garage. Dr. Ben was there.
So was Granville Morse. He had flown back to the rooftop after dropping
off Jacob and the other patients at the airport.
It was hot and humid, and some slept sitting up against the wall of the
helipad to catch the slight breeze. Others slept one floor below the
roof, where they had cared for patients. They scrunched up their scrubs
shirts to lay their heads on. A few slept on stretchers.
Well, this is a good way to end my birthday, Morse thought. I'll
never forget this one.
Sharing the rooftop were Tulane staff members, including Associate Vice
President Sharif Omar, Chief Nursing Officer Danita Sullivan, and
Montgomery. Mel Lagarde, the Hospital Corporation of America executive
who had stationed himself at Tulane, was also there.
Sullivan had finally gotten used to the heat, cutting off the pant legs
of her scrubs to cool herself. It was still 90 degrees, and now she was
freezing as sweat evaporated from her skin. She scrounged around and
found three washcloths and placed them strategically on her body for
warmth. Dr. Norm McSwain, Charity's trauma director and Tulane
medical school's chief of trauma surgery, was tucked inside a red
plastic hazardous materials bag, his head poking through a hole and
resting on diapers.
Before closing his eyes, Morse got up to go to the bathroom. Trying to
be discreet, he sneaked off to a corner of the rooftop. As he was about
to relieve himself, a call came from above.
Hidey-ho, Doc!
Morse looked up. Huddled on the fire escape of a hotel about 10 feet
away was a group of people. They had been living there to escape the
heat inside the hotel. The helipad crew had seen them barbecuing food
earlier in the week.
As they talked to Morse, the building's owner appeared and asked
whether he needed anything.
Morse looked down at the hard concrete.
Yeah, do you have any pillows?
The man disappeared inside. A few minutes later, dozens of pillows
floated down from hotel to helipad.
Morse was elated. Wow, this is great.
The Charity and Tulane staffs were not on the best of terms. But just
as death unites enemies in a cemetery, disaster had united them on the
roof of the parking garage.
As Morse walked around the roof, he made no distinction between his
Charity colleagues and the Tulane staff. Distributing his precious
cargo, he felt a little like the pillow fairy
James Zachary
New Orleans - *The Tulane Hospital parking garage shook as the sky
lit up in one spectacular explosion, followed by three smaller ones.
Flames shot 1,000 feet into the air.
It was 4:35 a.m., Friday, Sept. 2. Everyone on the rooftop jolted
awake. It felt like an earthquake. It was actually a chemical depot
exploding. But after four days of isolation, and having come to believe
that their own government had abandoned them, the doctors, nurses and
administrators had no idea what it was. In that moment between sleep
and wakefulness, their minds ran amok.
Attack helicopters are firing missiles, Dr. Granville Morse thought.
The feds couldn't fix this so they decided to nuke it, thought Dr.
Ben deBoisblanc.
Dr. Jennifer McGee, a chief resident for trauma surgery assigned to
Charity Hospital, was among those who had spent the night in the garage
after laboring for hours to get the sickest patients evacuated by
helicopter. Concern for them had been paramount. Now, for the first
time, she worried about herself.
I'm going to die, she thought. I'm not going to get out of here.
A young Marine was their defender. He had touched down in their
makeshift bedroom earlier that night, and would soon win a place in
their hearts. He told them he had just returned from his second tour of
duty in Iraq.
He looked no older than 25. But what he lacked in size and age, he made
up in confidence. A member of a Marine sniper team, he was a fearless
Rambo who sprinted along the edge of the parapet encircling the garage
roof. He would dive full-length onto the narrow wall, pointing his M-16
to the streets below. He's going to fall off, they thought.
In other circumstances, his antics might have seemed bizarre. But in
this frightening, surreal situation - with armed looters roaming the
flooded city and fires and explosions dotting the horizon - his
actions seemed perfectly normal. This was a war zone and those on the
rooftop found his presence, and his weapon, reassuring.
As the sun rose, Dr. Ben, director of Charity's medical intensive
care unit, prepared to return to his hospital across the street to
bring back more patients to the helipad. Although the most critical
were gone, more than 200 patients were still stranded at Charity, along
with about 800 staff and family members.
Jim Montgomery, president of Tulane Hospital, told Dr. Ben that his
residents on the rooftop were welcome to get in line with the hundreds
of Tulane employees and family members waiting to leave. Dr. Ben told
the young doctors they were free to go, but he was returning to
Charity.
An emotional struggle ensued as Morse and several other residents
debated whether to wade back through the filthy water or leave by
helicopter.
They forged an agreement: If a boat or truck arrived before the last
helicopter, they would return to Charity and help rescue the remaining
patients. If the helicopter came first, they would climb aboard and
leave.
Shortly after Dr. Ben and a handful of others left for Charity, a
55,000-pound Chinook appeared on the horizon. It was followed by a
second, then a third.
The mission Tulane administrators had thought would take days to
accomplish was over in 2 1/2 hours as 50 to 60 people boarded each
massive helicopter. Mel Lagarde, a division president of the Hospital
Corporation of America, didn't know why the flow of military choppers
had resumed; he believed they were a gift from God.
By late morning, the garage was nearly empty. At last, it was the
animals' turn.
John Holland, the pilot and retired Army colonel who had run the
rooftop operation, had been surprised to learn earlier in the week that
in addition to the people, there were 79 animals waiting to get out.
They were the pets of employees and family members who had brought them
to the hospital before Hurricane Katrina hit.
There had been a tense moment when someone ran onto the roof to tell
Sharif Omar, We've lost one.
The overwrought Tulane administrator, who had been assisting Holland
nonstop, thought the person meant a patient. No, we didn't; no
one's going to die, Omar had said.
But the casualty was a cat. The animal had pitched itself from the
sixth-floor railing of the garage to the watery streets below. Many
there considered it an act of suicide.
Friday morning, the evacuation of pets looked like Noah's ark. The
procession of animals included an Afghan hound, little bitty dogs,
cockatiels, parrots and cats.
As the animals emerged single file with their owners onto the rooftop,
they were blasted by the Chinook's powerful rotor wash and the roar
of its turbine engines. Those watching could see the fear in the
animals' eyes. It was as if they were saying to their owners, My God,
what are you asking me to do?
John Holland had left the Tulane rooftop at around 3 Friday morning,
turning over the air traffic control mission to Stiles Clarke, a
MedFlight administrator and paramedic. Holland had refused to leave
until the last of Charity's critical patients was off the rooftop.
By midday Friday, among the handful of people left were Lagarde,
Clarke, two ham radio operators and the Marine. Lagarde's mission
shifted to turning the helicopter operation over to Charity.
When he was unable to contact anyone across the street by phone, he
decided to go over by boat to talk directly to whoever was running
Charity's command post.
Lagarde went down to "the beach" - where the water came up the
ramp of the parking garage - and started to board an airboat operated
by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, when suddenly a
report crackled over the radio: Gunfire in the area. People in boats
are being targeted.
Lagarde returned to the roof.
In Nashville, Jack Bovender, CEO of HCA, made contact Friday with Dr.
Jim Aiken, medical director for emergency preparedness and one of those
in charge at Charity Hospital. It was easier to make a phone connection
from out of town than from across the street. Nashville patched through
Lagarde, and the three held a conference call.
Bovender told Aiken that Tulane officials were waiting for Charity to
set up a command-and-control structure on the garage rooftop so they
could hand over the operation. Aiken would need to send his own people
over to run it. The Tulane doctors and nurses were now gone, and they
would need to send ample medical staff with their patients.
Stuck at Charity all week, Aiken had seen the helicopters flying every
which way. He had glimpsed the massive Chinooks dodging buildings as
they lumbered over the city. It reminded him of the evacuation of
Saigon. He knew the pilots were risking their lives. He was not the
only one who considered it a miracle that none of the choppers had
crashed.
Dr. Ben's daring and desperate plan to take Charity's sickest
patients through the water to Tulane had terrified Aiken. He felt
responsible, as if by allowing them to go, he had put them in harm's
way. He never could have forgiven himself if anything had happened to
them.
Now Aiken felt they had pressed their luck with the helicopter
evacuation. What about the sniper fire? What if thugs commandeered the
boats carrying patients?
Bovender offered to continue sending helicopters at HCA's expense
until all the Charity people were out. But Aiken turned down the offer.
By then, he had reason to believe his people would be going out by
ground.
It was a little after noon on Friday. After Aiken hung up, Bovender
told Lagarde:
Mel, get on the next helicopter. Just get out of there.
James Zachary
Chapter 19: CATCHING RIDES TO FREEDOM, SAYING THEIR GOODBYES
By Jane O. Hansen | Wednesday, May 24, 2006, 01:08 PM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New Orleans - By Friday morning, Sept. 2, Dr. Ben deBoisblanc was
nearly a one-man operation on autopilot. As long as helicopters
continued to land on the roof of the Tulane Hospital parking garage
across the street, the impassioned physician was going to get his
patients over there.
Wednesday, he had managed to get four patients from Charity Hospital
evacuated by choppers; Thursday, about 30 more. All were critical and
two had died while waiting in the garage.
But Friday more than 200 patients remained trapped in Charity, as well
as about 800 employees and their families. Four days after Hurricane
Katrina, they were nearly out of food, water and medicine.
Don Smithburg, CEO of nine public hospitals, including Charity, held a
news conference at the state command post in Baton Rouge, pleading for
help. Provisions were running low at Charity and University hospitals,
he said. People were feeding themselves intravenously. They needed to
be rescued. Today.
"I pray for that," he said on air. He felt prayer was all he had.
Dr. Ben had given up hope that the Federal Emergency Management Agency
or anyone else from the government was on the way. All week, he had
heard that FEMA was coming, and no one showed. Occasionally, a National
Guard truck or a Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries boat arrived to take
away some patients. But there was no wholesale evacuation.
Some doctors had already flown out with patients. Dr. Ben could have
gone, too. Instead, he had waded back from Tulane to Charity Friday
morning to help others.
It was just like Dr. Ben to be there until the end, Celeste Waddell
thought. The respiratory therapist had worked with him for years on the
medical intensive care unit. All week, he had come around telling
Waddell and others, *Believe me, trust me, we're going to get you out
of here.
*Many nurses on her unit were young, and afraid. One had come to
Waddell and asked: *You've known him longer. Do you think he'll get
us out?
*Dr. Ben had always told Waddell that a person was only as good as his
word.
If he said he's going to get us out, *Waddell told her, *he'll get
us out.
Midday Friday, Dr. Ben arrived back on the Tulane roof with another
group of patients. But this time, he found the place deserted, except
for a police helicopter from north of Chicago.
Hadn't they known he would be back with more patients? It was just as
Dr. Ben had thought all along. They didn't care about his patients.
The Tulane people had abandoned them.
*The show's over, *the pilot, Cmdr. Dan Bitton, told Dr. Ben.
You gotta help us, Dr. Ben said. *We got sick patients we need to get
out of here.
*Dr. Ben didn't know that executives of the Hospital Corporation of
America in Nashville had offered to keep sending helicopters at its
expense, and that Dr. Jim Aiken, one of those in charge at Charity, had
declined.
Bitton's aircraft wasn't designed to transport patients on
stretchers. But he agreed to get in the air and try to signal more
helicopters to come to their aid. Once airborne, Bitton called HCA.
Soon, the right kind of helicopter was on the way.
At Charity, a noisy exodus was by then under way. Susan Sanborn lined
up with others against the yellow-tiled walls on the first floor,
leading out to the emergency room ramp. Her own patients had been
evacuated the day before, but now the staff were being told to grab
their belongings. They, too, might get out.
Someone with a bullhorn yelled for a nurse to come to the front and
accompany patients on a boat to Tulane.
Nurse, stretcher, go, go, go!
Sanborn's supervisor pushed her ahead. Sanborn was unsure of herself.
She was still a student, and they were calling for a nurse. You know
what to do, her supervisor reassured her. You're better than some of
the nurses.
Sanborn didn't want to be separated from her unit. But she and
another nurse boarded a boat with patients for what should have been a
short trip to Tulane's Saratoga Street parking garage. Instead, the
man piloting the boat took a long way around, to avoid a truck and two
other airboats blocking the way.
When they eventually pulled up at "the beach" - the partially
submerged first-floor ramp of the garage - Dr. Ben was there to drive
them to the roof in a pickup truck.
If Sanborn had been frightened in her final days at Charity, it
didn't compare with the fear she felt in the ride to the roof with
Dr. Ben behind the wheel. He raced up the ramps, tires screeching as he
turned the sharp, steep corners to get them to a helicopter before it
left. Sitting against the cab of the truck, she lifted her arms and
held onto the rack behind her. Her two patients were taped to tabletops
that served as stretchers. The tailgate was down, and she looped her
feet under the tape to prevent her patients from flying out the back.
Sanborn vowed never to get into another moving vehicle with Dr. Ben.
As they neared the roof, she saw the evidence of a triage operation -
empty oxygen tanks, rubber gloves, Ambu bags used to squeeze air into
patients' lungs. Wow, she thought, so this is where it all happened.
Despite the harrowing ride to the roof, Sanborn made it in time. She
climbed into the helicopter with her patients, surprised and happy to
find her supervisor and other nurses from her unit already on board.
They had arrived earlier, and their patients had already been airlifted
by medevacs equipped with their own medical staff.
As she lifted off Friday afternoon, Sanborn shared the feelings many
experienced upon getting out. Operating in their own silos all week,
they hadn't seen the television images of mile after mile of
devastation along the Gulf Coast. There was so much water, fires still
burning, unbelievable damage. It wasn't until they left New Orleans
that they began to understand the enormity of what had happened - to
their city, their hospitals, themselves.
But like others, Sanborn also would feel an intense pride. She had been
part of something extraordinary. So few people had died in the face of
so much danger.
One of the last people Dr. Ben helped evacuate Friday afternoon was a
man who had been found at the side of a building doubled over in pain.
The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries had brought him to
the Tulane garage by boat.
The man was lying on a piece of cardboard, clutching his abdomen. Dr.
Ben didn't know what was wrong, just that he was in so much pain he
couldn't speak. Dr. Ben noticed he was dressed nicely in khakis, as
if he were a foreman or a manager.
As the doctor helped load him onto the chopper, the man's hand opened
and a set of keys fell onto the concrete. Dr. Ben picked them up. But
as he reached to clip them to the man's belt buckle, the helicopter
lifted into the air.
The physician didn't know who the man was, where he was going,
whether he would survive. Like so many of Charity's patients, he was
heading to some unknown place, facing an uncertain future.
Dr. Ben thought of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Maybe he could find
him one day and give him back his keys.
Dr. Ben slipped them into his pocket.
If she did not get out of Charity on Friday, Sherry Hebert had decided,
she would swim out the next day. She wanted to get to her son Hunter.
He had been the first Charity patient airlifted from Tulane's parking
garage Wednesday night. The water no longer scared her, not as much as
the possibility of dying in the hospital.
But Friday afternoon, more than three days after Charity had been told
FEMA was on its way, the government finally showed up with a cavalcade
of boats and trucks. The water had receded enough that giant
18-wheelers could pull up to the hospital.
Like the Chinook helicopters that had sped up Tulane's evacuation,
the trucks helped do the same for Charity. As many as 20 people at a
time climbed aboard - first the remaining patients, then family, and
finally exhausted but jubilant staff.
Sherry was shepherded onto an airboat with Carolyn Lewis. The women had
become friends in a hospital waiting room, worrying and struggling to
keep their critically ill sons alive. Sherry had been there for Carolyn
when the woman learned her son Preston hadn't made it.
The day before, the two mothers had lined up to go out by airboat, but
the rescue was aborted when the craft came under fire. This time, a
member of the National Guard rode with them, his rifle pointed in the
air.
Later Friday, Celeste Waddell left Charity in the back of an
18-wheeler. The respiratory therapist was taken to the New Orleans
airport, where the military hustled her onto a plane to San Antonio.
>From there, she would fly to Dallas, where her sister lived.
Waddell had grown close to Sherry and Carolyn. The three shared the
bond of motherhood. Each had a son. One had died, one survived, and one
was long since gone.
As her plane left New Orleans, Waddell's thoughts were of her son,
Chris, who was buried there. She looked out the window into darkness.*
I'm not abandoning you,* she told him.* You'll always be with me.*
Dr. Ben oversaw the air rescue of 21 more patients from the Tulane
helipad that day. By the time he arrived back at Charity about 3:30
p.m. Friday, the long-awaited evacuation of the hospital was at last in
progress. It would all be over in a few hours.
Twenty-eight years earlier, as a young medical student, Dr. Ben had
started his career at Charity. He'd done his residency there and
never left. The hospital was central to his life, just as it was to New
Orleans.
He was one of the last to leave. On the way out, he passed a sign
welcoming people to a place "Where the Unusual Occurs and Miracles
Happen."
Dr. Ben cried. He had a feeling he would never walk through Charity's
doors again.
James Zachary
Chapter 20: KINDNESS FROM STRANGERS, AND WORDS THAT STING
By Jane O. Hansen | Thursday, May 25, 2006, 03:57 PM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On Friday, Sept. 2, Susan Sanborn lined up for a tetanus shot and a
dose of Cipro at a hospital in Covington, La. The vaccine and
antibiotic would help ward off bacteria that the Charity Hospital
student nurse might have picked up from the filthy water in New
Orleans.
A chartered bus then drove her to a shelter in Lafayette, La., where
she received fresh underwear, new scrubs, flip-flops, toiletries, a
towel and washcloth. She took her first shower in nearly a week,
luxuriating in the soap, water and shampoo.
A school bus took her to a banquet hall where evacuees were regaled
with a feast of Popeyes chicken and home-cooked jambalaya. Sanborn,
already a slim, small woman, had lost nearly 4 pounds while marooned in
Charity Hospital after Hurricane Katrina.
Her evacuation had come courtesy of the Hospital Corporation of America
and a makeshift helipad across the street, at Tulane Hospital's
parking garage. Now she was in the care of HCA, Tulane's corporate
owner, which had set up shelters in Lafayette. About 1,200 evacuees,
mostly Tulane employees and staff, would come through them in the next
24 hours.
Sanborn was overwhelmed by the outpouring of assistance. Someone asked
for her name, Social Security number and where she wanted to go. They
handed her information on how to get relief assistance, disaster
benefits and, if she were a Tulane employee, a paycheck.
Where do you want to go? they asked her. She said she was from
Columbus, Ohio, but joked she would be happy to stay put. I'm clean,
there's nobody here with weapons, the food is wonderful, it's
air-conditioned.
The next day, Sanborn and about 60 others boarded buses for the
Lafayette Regional Airport. HCA had chartered planes to Houston and
Atlanta. Anyone going farther would receive a ticket to a final
destination.
At the airport, security stopped her. She had forgotten she was still
carrying her scalpel. Guards confiscated it.
In Atlanta, HCA representatives met the evacuees at the gate. Anyone
who had to stay overnight received cash and a hotel reservation.
Sanborn was booked on Delta Flight 1630 to Columbus. Before heading to
the gate, she said goodbye to the people she knew, and for the first
time that week she felt lonely. Wearing scrubs and flip-flops, she
started to board her flight that Saturday night, when a Delta
representative suddenly pulled her aside.
Here, my dear, you have a different seat, he told her. My cousin,
Katrina, upgraded you to first class.
Sanborn was confused. Oh, my God, she didn't have to do that, she
said. Later, she wondered whether he thought she had lost her mind.
Columbus was the city where Sanborn had grown up and trained to be a
dancer. Other than the people at Charity, she felt she had no real
family. But she did have a friend and mentor in Columbus - her ballet
professor, who offered her a room until she could get settled.
One day, after arriving in Columbus, Sanborn saw a picture of one of
her patients in U.S. News & World Report. He was sitting on a New
Orleans median strip. What do you mean they put him there? she said to
herself.
She spent hours on the Charity Web site looking for her patients'
names on the list of those who had been evacuated. All had left her
unit alive, and she wanted to know they were OK. But one of her
patients was missing from the list: the man she initially knew as
Ebony.
Ebony and Ivory were the names Sanborn and others had coined for two
elderly nursing home patients, one black and one white, brought to
Charity the day of the storm. They were on ventilators, with no medical
information. Sanborn had grown attached to the two men.
Later she would learn that Ebony was one of two patients who had died
in the garage while waiting for a helicopter. The student nurse felt
empty, sad and angry. How could the government just leave a city like
that?
She spent much of her time those first few weeks watching television
coverage of the hurricane. She had developed conjunctivitis in both
eyes, probably from the water she had crossed from Charity to Tulane,
but she remained glued to the set, and wept.
On Sept. 8, she was watching a CNN broadcast called "Angels in the
Storm" that chronicled individual tales of heroism. Toward the end
was a segment about the helicopter rescue off Tulane Hospital's
parking garage.
There on the screen was Dr. Ben deBoisblanc from Charity, speaking
excitedly about his patients. "Two of them have already died here on
this ramp waiting to get out!" he said. "In this very spot!"
The correspondent reported, "The Charity staff watches as Tulane's
people get out while their own patients are ignored."
Sanborn immediately called CNN. She was transferred several times and
finally left a message: That's erroneous reporting. It's not true.
Tulane delayed evacuation in order to help our critical care patients.
She left her number, saying she was a student nurse who had been there.
But no one called back.
Spurred on by the broadcast, the next day Sanborn e-mailed HCA. She was
tired of the media focusing on snipers and guns. "There are truly no
words to express my gratitude to HCA for absorbing and rescuing our
patients at Charity Hospital and for rescuing me, five nurses and two
children from our unit," she wrote. "I wish you and your staff
members and hospitals the very best as we all try to put the pieces
back together after this tragedy."
Jack Bovender, CEO of HCA, would be one of the first to read the
student nurse's e-mail.
The CNN account was one of several media reports in which Charity
officials criticized Tulane Hospital's treatment of their patients.
A Sept. 11 article in The Philadelphia Inquirer quoted Dr. Ben: "We
sat there from 7 a.m. Thursday until 7 p.m. trying to keep these
patients alive ... while HCA landed helicopter after helicopter after
helicopter to carry off healthy people. I had to physically restrain
some of the residents who went ballistic."
Some of the most critical comments came from Dr. Dwayne Thomas, CEO of
Charity and its affiliate, University Hospital. In a Sept. 14
broadcast, he told CNBC, "In actuality, HCA did not assist us in
evacuation at all."
In a Sept. 19 article in The New York Times, "a quietly furious"
Thomas blasted Tulane: "To load able-bodied staff before you let
patients off a roof is reprehensible." Thomas, who now refuses to
comment, was never at Charity that week, nor was he on the Tulane
garage roof.
Months later, some bad feelings remain.
Since Hurricane Katrina, HCA administrators have refrained from
criticizing the government for failing to rescue Charity, or Charity
for sitting back and waiting. They have said that as a private
hospital, Tulane has far more resources than the public hospital. It
would be unfair to make a comparison. But they are quick to defend what
they did for Charity's sickest patients, and they bristle at
Thomas' disparaging remarks.
"Let me make something clear," said Mel Lagarde, the HCA executive
in charge that week at Tulane. "At no point in time did we ever turn
away a patient from this hospital. At no time did we say less acute
patients are going ahead of critical patients. That would never enter
the minds of anyone. The last thing we wanted was for someone to
die."
Hospital administrators had nothing to do with the triage of patients,
he said. That was handled by physicians whose sole goal was to save as
many lives as possible. Dr. Norm McSwain, trauma director at Charity,
was one of those who helped decide who went out first.
McSwain, who as chief of trauma surgery for the Tulane medical school
had affiliations with both hospitals, blames criticism of Tulane on
"smoke and mirrors." By making Tulane the bad guy, he said, Thomas
could deflect criticism away from the state.
"The true story is the government didn't show up," McSwain said.
"Nobody showed up - not the state, not the federal government, not
the local government. Nobody showed up to evacuate Charity's
patients."
Had it not been for HCA, McSwain said, Charity's critically ill
patients would not have been rescued, at least not in as timely a
fashion.
There were heated arguments on the rooftop. Jim Montgomery, president
and CEO of Tulane Hospital, says he had words with Dr. Ben when Charity
brought over not just patients on stretchers, but those who could walk.
"We were hot, tired, sweaty, hungry, all the above, and yeah, it was
frustrating," he said. "But at the end, when you turn around and
think about it, you knew you had to help them. And that's what has
irritated us - their somewhat aggressive attitude in trying to say we
didn't."
In the end, Lagarde said, "We were able to accomplish for them what
they were unable to do on their own."
As time has passed, the harsh remarks about Tulane have dwindled. At a
slide presentation to medical students and residents two months after
the storm, Dr. Ben steered away from criticizing Tulane.
But the already strained relationship remains fragile between the
public and private hospitals. Like thousands of others in New Orleans,
those inside the hospitals lived through a disaster of near-biblical
proportions, and chaos at times reigned. Tulane "was a different
world" from Charity, Dr. Ben said. "It's a parallel universe."
In recounting what happened, "Everybody's telling the truth. It's
just a different perspective."
>From his perspective, a breakdown in communication on the rooftop and
the lack of a command-and-control structure higher than Tulane or
Charity led to a "Lord of the Flies" struggle to survive. It was
the haves vs. the have-nots, and Charity got in Tulane's way.
"They had their own responsibilities to evacuate their own patients,
their own medical staff. And basically, they helped us when they could,
but we were more of a nuisance than anything."
Still, his perspective has changed with time, at least partially.
"It's become obvious to me that they did care a lot," he said
recently. "The truth is probably somewhere between those two
perspectives. It usually is."
About a week after sending her e-mail to HCA, Susan Sanborn got a call.
Bovender, the CEO, had instructed his human resources department to
track Sanborn down.
The woman on the phone asked Sanborn her plans. Sanborn told her she
hoped to get her associate nursing degree at a state school in Ohio,
where she now lived. The woman told her HCA wanted to offer her a
scholarship and encouraged her to go to Mount Carmel College of
Nursing, a private school in Columbus where she could get her
bachelor's degree.
Sanborn was stunned. You understand, I have nothing to do with y'all,
she said.
On Sept. 20, Sanborn wrote another e-mail to HCA: "This will not be
an eloquent letter because I have not yet sorted out my feelings,"
she wrote. "However, I must in some small way, again acknowledge the
great gift you have given to me. In time, I will have the words I need
in order to thank you properly. In the meantime, know that I am crying.
And these tears are the first I've shed in several weeks that are not
out of grief, but out of joy."
James Zachary
Chapter 21: THREE MOMS: HARDSHIPS SHARED, FRIENDSHIPS FORGED
By Jane O. Hansen | Friday, May 26, 2006, 01:38 PM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Nearly two weeks after her son's death, Carolyn Lewis was still
searching for his body.
It wasn't at Baton Rouge General, where he had died shortly after his
evacuation. Carolyn called the local sheriff's department.
I'm trying to find out where my child's body is, she said.
Her sister called the governor's office. Someone said he had been
taken to Huey P. Long Medical Center in central Louisiana. But when
Carolyn's oldest son called there, asking about Preston Leon Johnson,
the hospital had no one by that name.
She went on local television, pleading for help from anyone who might
know where the body of her 25-year-old son had been taken. In the
second week of September, she got in touch with Celeste Waddell.
Perhaps the respiratory therapist from Charity Hospital could help.
Waddell had told Carolyn she wanted to stay in touch. The year before,
Waddell had lost her own son, and she knew what Carolyn was going
through. You will always have a place in my heart, Waddell had told her
while they were both still trapped inside Charity.
After making some calls, Waddell told Carolyn it was likely Preston's
body had been taken to the mass morgue for Katrina victims set up by
the federal government in a warehouse in St. Gabriel, La., a small town
about 70 miles northwest of New Orleans. A funeral home would have to
claim the body.
Carolyn told the local funeral director he would be able to identify
her son by a tattoo on his left arm of praying hands and the words,
"Only God can judge me." On Sept. 13, the man found Preston at the
makeshift morgue. The keepsakes Charity nurses had wrapped around his
arm and middle finger before his evacuation - a wooden cross and a
key chain with pictures of his little boys - were gone.
Recently, Carolyn sat in her small, tidy home in Lake Charles, La.,
surrounded by religious objects and family pictures. She wore a blue
denim sweat suit and large silver hoop earrings, her hair piled on top
of her head. She said her son's death could have been prevented had
he been moved out of Charity earlier and into a functioning hospital
that could have given him proper care.
"I feel everybody passed the buck," she said. "The president did
his share of it, the governor did her share of it, and the mayor did
his share of it."
Although it was not the family's custom, Carolyn had Preston's body
cremated. The remains are in an urn in her home.
At 55, she is helping raise two active little boys, her grandsons, ages
6 and 4. The last promise she made to her son was to be there for his
boys. "I thank God for him," she said. "I was proud of him. I
thank God that he was mine."
Sherry Hebert went straight to Hunter's bedside at Earl K. Long
Medical Center in Baton Rouge after saying goodbye to Carolyn. It had
been three days since she had seen her son.
He had been evacuated from Charity Hospital Wednesday night. But she
didn't get out until Friday, Sept. 2. That night, she had begged
everyone - the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National
Guard and the Louisiana State Police - not to make her fly from the
New Orleans airport to a military base in San Antonio. Her son was
lying critically ill in a hospital in Baton Rouge, close to her home.
She wanted to head there. But authorities told her evacuees were under
marshal law and now "federal refugees." For the time being, they
would do as they were told.
Almost as soon as they landed in Texas, Sherry and Carolyn had walked
away, grabbed a taxi and gotten on a plane to Baton Rouge with a
layover in Memphis. They were back in Louisiana the next morning.
When Sherry arrived at the hospital, Hunter was still critical and on a
respirator. He was swollen all over; his kidneys no longer worked. He
would remain in the hospital for 49 days. Sherry slept on the floor the
first 22, while he was in intensive care.
If he had been evacuated from Charity a day or two earlier, she
believed, he wouldn't have lost his kidneys. But Hunter, now 24, got
out alive, and for that she is eternally grateful. Had it not been for
Dr. Ben deBoisblanc and all the staff on the sixth-floor ICU at Charity
Hospital, Hunter would not have survived. By putting a tube into his
chest on the way to the Tulane Hospital helipad, they had saved his
life.
Hunter was eventually discharged from the Baton Rouge hospital, had a
seizure and returned. In the coming months, it would be touch-and-go
with more seizures and treatment for Goodpasture's syndrome, a rare
immunological condition with symptoms like those of leukemia. But he
made gradual improvements.
On Saturday, Dec. 3, Hunter Reeves married his fiancee, 18-year-old
Kristy Arceneaux. He wore a tuxedo and a cowboy hat to hide his loss of
hair from chemotherapy. Dr. Ben was there, and after the couple was
pronounced husband and wife, Hunter made a speech. He thanked Dr. Ben
and resident Dr. Jeffrey Williams for saving his life.
On March 17, Hunter's wife gave birth to a baby, Kali Ann. "She is
a sweet baby and doing fine," Sherry said. "Oh, she looks just like
Hunter."
The family hopes Hunter will be placed on the list for a kidney
transplant. Sherry said they were told it could take a year. Meanwhile
he gets dialysis and physical therapy three times a week.
In recent months, Sherry has spoken by phone with Carolyn and Celeste
Waddell. Carolyn asked about Hunter's wedding and told Sherry she had
a gift for her new grandbaby. Sherry wants to surprise her one day with
a visit.
"I think the three of us felt the heart-wrenching pain of what our
kids were going through," Sherry said. "They both touched my life.
It's something I'll never forget."
James Zachary
CHAPTER 22: TRIUMPHS, TEARS AND CHANGED LIVES
By Jane O. Hansen | Saturday, May 27, 2006, 03:22 PM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New Orleans - On Tuesday morning, Feb. 14, the sun shone in a crisp
blue sky as dozens of people wearing scrubs and business suits gathered
on the rooftop of Tulane Hospital's Saratoga Street parking garage.
In a few hours, Tulane would resume business, the first hospital to
reopen in downtown New Orleans.
There to celebrate were Tulane staff and Hospital Corporation of
America executives. They laughed and hugged, some seeing each other for
the first time since Hurricane Katrina had changed their lives more
than five months before.
"You smelled worse than me," a physician said to a paramedic.
"There's a certain aroma missing. We're all clean."
Suddenly a helicopter appeared on the horizon, hovered above, then
landed in the middle of the garage roof, its deafening rotor wash
knocking some people nearly off their feet. The crowd roared when out
of the aircraft stepped John Holland, the Georgia medical pilot -
"The Man" - who had served during the rooftop rescue as air
traffic controller.
Holland brought with him the huge American flag that had been draped
over the hospital the week its employees and patients were stranded
inside. Solemnly, he helped carry the flag on a stretcher across the
roof and into the arms of those who would rehang it.
A champagne toast followed. Then everyone went downstairs to a tent
outside the emergency room to await the arrival of Mayor Ray Nagin. The
celebration was quintessential HCA. The tent was decked out with palm
trees, chandeliers, hanging plants and refreshments. A Dixieland band
played as more than 200 medical staff, seated on bleachers, did the
wave. When the mayor arrived, the crowd hooted and hollered. Nagin and
Mel Lagarde, the HCA executive who had helped run the Tulane
evacuation, embraced.
"New Orleans is back!" Nagin shouted. "And we're going to take
it to the next level with HCA driving us all the way!"
With a snip of giant scissors, Nagin then cut the green ribbon
stretched in front of the emergency room entrance. The ER, operating
rooms, ICU and one-third of the hospital's beds were now open. Full
service is expected to resume in late summer or early fall.
Across the street, Charity Hospital - and its future - stood in
stark contrast. A Georgia consulting firm has concluded the 67-year-old
building is "unsalvageable" and not worth the cost to repair. There
are preliminary plans with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to
build a new public hospital on a 37-acre plot of land a few blocks
away. It will not bear the Charity name, and could take more than five
years to complete.
In the meantime, a reduced medical staff is offering emergency medical
services out of an old Lord & Taylor store next to the Superdome. A
scaled-down trauma center has temporarily opened in leased space at
another hospital.
As the Tulane party spilled onto a side street, "Big Charity"
looked forgotten and forlorn, like an old grande dame whose glory days
had passed. There was no music, no celebration. No workers had labored
to clean her up or bring her back to life. Rather, Charity was alone,
like a sick patient who has finally been taken off life support.
In the end, Tulane got all 178 of its patients out alive. All were
safely transported to other hospitals. Among them was a 15-year-old boy
on life support who was awaiting a heart transplant. He has since
gotten a new heart at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston and is
doing well. The rescue operation involved 231 helicopter landings and
cost HCA at least $2.7 million.
Six of Charity's 347 patients died before they could be evacuated.
Two were nursing home patients who died in the Tulane parking garage
while waiting for helicopters. Four others - all critical - died in
the hospital the first two days after the storm. An unknown number of
patients, like Preston Johnson, died after their evacuation. But so
many more lived, thanks to the countless doctors, nurses, pilots,
administrators, family members and others who put patients' lives
above their own.
Mel Lagarde and Ben deBoisblanc were on opposite sides of the street
during the storm. Each had been terrified patients would die. Each
stayed until the end, protecting his hospital - Lagarde at Tulane,
Dr. Ben at Charity. They didn't know each other, yet their lives were
intertwined by Katrina, and since have taken similar turns. Each has
begun to rebuild his life, with a new sense of purpose.
One day last October, six weeks after the hurricane, Mel Lagarde was
feeling the pressure to find the right people to chair his committees.
The list of positions stared at him in large letters from a chart that
hung on the wall.
After Katrina, Lagarde's life took on a complexity he never imagined.
On Sept. 30, the mayor named him co-chairman of a commission to help
rebuild the city.
Sitting in an HCA office in Covington, across Lake Pontchartrain from
New Orleans, Lagarde grew tearful as he recalled the images of his city
under water: "Pictures can't capture the death, the smells, the
sounds," he said. "You were speechless, breathless."
Soon after his evacuation, Lagarde settled into life as a bachelor, his
wife and children scattered. Their house in New Orleans was
uninhabitable. A vacation home in coastal Mississippi had been leveled.
It was OK for the time being to live alone in a hotel room, because the
rebuilding of the city is a "daunting task," said Lagarde, who met
four times with President Bush before the commission turned over its
final report in January.
Last week, the newly re-elected Nagin asked Lagarde to chair the
implementation of the plan. "Nobody's ever done anything like this;
9/11 was a 12-block radius in a town that was mostly still
operative," Lagarde said. "We're looking at models from World War
II where entire cities were obliterated."
Lagarde doesn't like to talk about the week he spent at Tulane
Hospital or his role in what happened. But he feels the experience
helped prepare him for this next phase of life. He's more comfortable
not always being in control. He feels a deeper connection to people, to
his city.
"It has made me have a profound bond with the people who were here
with me," he said. "To a certain extent, it bonded me to the city
in a different way." He choked up before continuing.
"It's fragile now," Lagarde said softly. "It needs help.
There's so much devastation. There are people whose lives have been
destroyed."
After the storm, he was at the helm of a sinking ship. Yet he and
others saved it and pulled others aboard in the process. "You were
part of something you never want to go through again," he said.
"But you're proud to have been a part of it."
His biggest regret from that week was not getting to know the Charity
staff. Even after their sickest patients were gone from Tulane's
rooftop, and they had the chance to leave themselves, Dr. Ben
deBoisblanc and others returned to Charity.
"I thought in a world of heroic events, this was like another
completely selfless act," Lagarde said. "To this day, I would love
to meet that staff. I would love to tell them, whatever it's worth,
what an honor it was for me to be there and have seen that act."
He and Dr. Ben didn't get along on the rooftop. The impassioned Dr.
Ben didn't much like the calm, "cold" corporate executive. At one
point, he referred to Lagarde as a "son of a bitch."
Like Dr. Ben, Lagarde understands that one person's perception is not
necessarily another's reality. "No one person has the complete view
of everything that happened," he said. But Lagarde saw something in
the physician:
"I would hope that when I am acutely ill that I have a doctor like
Ben deBoisblanc taking care of me," Lagarde said. "I want that
passion. I want that patient advocacy. I want that person fighting for
my life like he was."
Months after the hurricane, Dr. Ben went back to living on his beloved
boat, Creola, in a Lake Pontchartrain marina. He had left the boat the
day before Katrina hit and reported to work at Charity. A picture of
his late father, who had instilled in him his love for sailing, was one
of the few items he left behind. The photo was irreplaceable, but Dr.
Ben had a feeling his father would watch over the vessel. Of about 300
boats in the marina, Creola was one of a handful still floating after
the storm.
After Katrina, his 14-year-old son was in Houston, his 16-year-old
daughter in north Louisiana and he was back on the boat, alone. Several
months before, his wife of 20 years had left him. His children have
since returned to live with her.
It has been a tough year for Dr. Ben. "My wife left me, I turned 50
and I spent a week in hell."
But it has also been a year of triumph. "One of the remarkable things
about having a mission is that it completely takes your mind off the
fact that you haven't bathed, you're hungry, you don't have
water, people are dying," Dr. Ben said. "We had a focus."
Dr. Ben cried when he left Charity, knowing it might be for the last
time. "Even if we built a new facility, part of me would die in that
building," he said. To him, Charity is more than a stately public
hospital that has been the lifeline for generations of poor New
Orleanians.
"It has a heart and a soul," he said, "and to abandon it just
doesn't seem like an appropriate way to put it to rest."
He's committed to seeing a new Charity take its place, whether the
old one gets a face-lift or a new hospital is built. "The option I
can't accept is we don't need it anymore."
He realizes the patient population in New Orleans has declined, and no
one knows how many people will return. Only about 161,000 - or a
third of the city's population before the storm - have moved back.
The pool of doctors, nurses and medical residents has also shrunk.
Although he has not completely resolved for himself what happened on
the Tulane rooftop, Dr. Ben was surprised - and humbled - that
Lagarde said he would choose him for his doctor.
"It was a difficult time," he said, tearing up. "I think he
understood my passion. For him to say such a kind thing tells me he's
a first-class guy. Like I said, if we could do it all again, we'd all
do things differently." He later added he appreciated "everything
everyone did, from Jim Montgomery to Mel Lagarde. But they're
absolutely right. We were totally out of our league. Totally."
He said the harsh comments about Tulane by Dwayne Thomas, CEO of
Charity and its affiliate, University Hospital, were also born of
passion.
"I'm a white kid from a middle-class family," Dr. Ben said. "I
believe in what I do, but I don't live in the other universe."
Thomas, who is black, "grew up in the other universe. I see it as
haves and have-nots... . But when you look at the have-nots in New
Orleans, most of them are black, and Dwayne feels that pain."
Thomas may have been "speaking on hearsay" when he said Tulane did
not aid the evacuation of Charity, Dr. Ben said. But that's no
different from the media reporting rapes and murders that later turned
out to be rumor.
"Those were believable rumors by people who wanted to believe
them," Dr. Ben said. "The stereotype of poor black people in
southern Louisiana is they must be murderers and rapists."
Similarly, he said, it may have been easy for Thomas to believe that
the private hospital's employees were evacuating themselves before
his public hospital's patients. "I could imagine hearing that just
burned a hole through him."
One incident in particular rankled Thomas - but it involved patients
from University Hospital, not Charity. He told The New York Times that
he put babies from University in boats with their mothers and doctors,
"but they were turned around at gunpoint by Tulane police." Tulane
officials say it never happened. But Dr. Brian Barkemeyer, a
neonatologist at University, saw six nurses leave with babies, and he
saw them return. "They told me when they approached Tulane, guards
with guns turned them away."
Whatever happened, Barkemeyer said, "It probably happened at the
hospital security level. I don't believe it would have been mandated
from above."
When Dr. Ben heard about the babies, he understood Thomas' outrage,
and how the heat of the moment can affect a person's viewpoint.
Since his evacuation, Dr. Ben has kept a set of keys in his pocket.
They belonged to a patient who dropped them as Dr. Ben loaded him into
a helicopter the final day of the airlift. He never learned the man's
name, or whether he survived. "They somehow connect me, I guess, to
my past - to all those experiences that I had. And I sort of look at
them as a bridge to the future."
Just as that man's future was uncertain, there are unknowns in his
own life. A critical care pul- monologist, he is working in intensive
care units in two far-flung hospitals - one public, one private. He
remains on the LSU medical school staff.
Other than the end of his marriage, he calls his week trying to save
Charity "the most phenomenal experience I've had as a human
being."
"I don't have post-traumatic stress disorder. I've never felt
more alive. I feel like it's awakened something inside of me. I have
post-traumatic elation disorder."
Before that week, he was a "techno-geek" working in a
technologically driven environment. Patients had become little more
than a diagnosis. "When we lost the technology," he said, his voice
catching, "it was as though the patient emerged. The human being had
been covered by this veil of technology, and we peeled back the layers
and all of a sudden we reconnected."
There were so many heroes and heroines that week, he said, people who
have now lost their jobs. He doesn't see himself as a hero. "I'm
just a schmo schlepping through life."
There were no bad guys, he said, just a lot of individuals trying to do
the right thing in a very bad situation. Together, they achieved
something remarkable.
"The story of triumph in our days there was that none of us would
have chosen to walk away, to abandon our patients," he said. "It
was so crystal-clear what our responsibility was - that we had been
entrusted with these patients, with their lives, with their futures.
And that was a trust we were not going to break."
It was the essence of Charity.
James Zachary
THROUGH HELL AND HIGH WATER / Epilogue
Would the FAA be wrong to bend rules in a catastrophe?
By JANE O. HANSEN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/04/06
Last summer, when Chuck Hall found a large Russian helicopter that
could help rescue people stranded in New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina,
it was as if he had hit the jackpot. Then he hit a bureaucratic wall.
It was Tuesday, Aug. 30. The levees had been breached. The city
flooded. As president of the north Florida division of the Hospital
Corporation of America, Hall was well-versed in hurricane response, and
he moved quickly to help save those marooned at HCA's Tulane Hospital.
But the air ambulances at HCA's disposal could only carry one or two
people at a time. Inside the hospital were more than 1,200 patients,
staff and family members. Hall knew they needed something bigger.
Then a lawyer put him in touch with a private businessman who owned an
Mi-8MTV, a Russian military helicopter between the size of a U.S. Black
Hawk and Chinook; it could carry 26 people at a time. It could also
carry twice the amount of fuel as most helicopters - four and a half
hours worth. And fuel that week was considered liquid gold.
Hall spoke to James Montgomerie of Vertol Systems Co., the private
company based in Oregon that owned the aircraft in Destin, Fla.
Montgomerie immediately lined up a crew. Now all they needed was
clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration to fly.
But when it comes to the federal government, sometimes not even a
national emergency can stir the bureaucracy. "First we had clearance,
then all of a sudden it's grounded," said Ed Jones, an HCA vice
president of supply chain operations. Based in the corporation's
Nashville headquarters, Jones was in charge of securing helicopters for
the rescue operation. "The big rub was certification versus air space."
The helicopter had been certified by the FAA as "experimental" - a
designation for aircraft used in such things as research or
exhibitions. As opposed to having a "standard air worthiness"
certificate, an experimental chopper cannot carry people, under federal
regulations.
Typically, ex-war birds are given experimental certificates, which
carry limits on how they can be used and where they can fly, said Les
Dorr, an FAA spokesman.
"These regulations exist for a reason," he said. If an aircraft hasn't
met the more stringent requirements of the standard air worthiness
certificate, there's no guarantee of safety for passengers. The flight
to and from the makeshift helipad on the Tulane parking garage roof was
fraught with risk. "You're talking about a helicopter that simply was
not certified to do that sort of flight into that sort of terrain under
those kinds of conditions," Dorr said.
But Jones and Hall described a situation more akin to the left hand not
knowing what the right hand was doing. "I found the Washington bureau
[of the FAA] very helpful in trying to get the appropriate approval,"
Hall said. "I found the folks in Baton Rouge to be somewhat of a
challenge in getting the final approval to fly."
In the flurry of phone calls exchanged that week, Montgomerie received
one from an FAA inspector in Baton Rouge who warned him not to fly the
craft before the inspector came to examine it. Montgomerie said fine,
when can you come? "He said, 'Well I'm kind of busy,' " Montgomerie
said. " 'I think I can get there sometime in the next six weeks.' "
Shouting match
At one point, Jones got into a near shouting match with an FAA
official. The Mi-8 is already used in 54 countries. It's designed to
carry troops and supplies and to be used in armed attacks. The FAA
official in charge of air space had given them the go-ahead. But the
official over standards and certification said no.
"I called the guy in standards and said, 'It's a Russian Mi-8, for
God's sake," Jones said. "We got people dying on that parking garage. I
need to have this aircraft freed up. What do I need to do to get
clearance on this thing?"
Dorr could not confirm any of the conversations that Jones, Hall and
Montgomerie said they had with the FAA. But he did say the agency may
try to streamline the process to avoid a similar snafu in the future.
"We have had internal discussions about an operational response plan
and how we can help to get things done more quickly," he said.
Eventually, the FAA did grant a "national interest waiver" to allow the
Mi-8 to be used in the Tulane rescue. But it was too late. All the
Tulane people had already been evacuated.
"It never was able to fly a mission," Hall said.