This come's via a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of one of my closest friends (amazing how things spread via email, isn't it). it's apparently the account of a first year resident at Charity Hospital in NOLA. I'm not going to comment, the account speaks for itself.
From: "Brandon Cole" <
E-mail Witheld>
Date: September 4, 2005 2:06:04 PM EDT
Friends and family
Thank you for your concern and the support y'all have been giving to the effort down here. I just wanted to send a quick email to let you know I'm safe and staying at a friend's in Baton Rouge. I was activated in the medical intensive care unit for the storm effort and wanted to let you know the reports you may have heard about Charity Hospital and the evacuation in general are accurate. The long and the short of it is we were promised evacuation and aid from FEMA (federal emergency management agency) for our critical patients each day following the storm. However, as you may have heard, we saw not one effort on their part to get us out. The storm hit on Monday morning, knocking out the main generators in the hospital (wisely placed in the basement... of a hospital built below sea level... in a hurricane zone...) That night spirits were high as we still had our backup generators, and the levee had not yet broken. As a matter of fact, a friend and I took a break from our duties to wander around the city, marvelling at how well things seemed to have fared - the wind damage aside (the hyatt looked like a bomb had hit it), there was very little flooding at that point and I remember thinking the city had pulled it out again (new orleans famous for sort of crossing thier fingers whenever hurricanes come our way and coming out on top). However, as the night wore on, the levee developed a breach 2 blocks long and by the next morning the streets were flooded with 3-4 feet of water. Tuesday our backup generators started to cut out and we had to start running around the hospital with 2-300 foot long extension cords finding working outlets on floors above us and running the cords down the fire escape -or using the only working outlet on our floor - the one where the coke machine was plugged in - removing our only source of sweet sweet syrupy carbonation. I've got pictures of the power strips plugged into power strips plugged into power strips on a floor covered in water from the storm - just so we could keep our ventilators running. That afternoon we lost those power sources and had to resort to diesel generators - which were initially conserved as we had a very limited source of diesel fuel. Around that same time we lost water to the building and sanitation started to, well, go to shit so to speak. As a matter of fact, you have not experienced filth until you've saran wrapped toiltets to keep out the stench. We had portapotties on our floor and buckets were distributed for waste. However, during all of this we still had the hope that FEMA would be coming soon to evacuate us to the staging area, either at the Superdome or the airport. Wednesday morning, however, after learning that yet again, evacuation was 'imminent', the decision was made to make plans on our own. One of our residents made a plea to CNN and was able to obtain transport for 2 of our 11 patients with a private medical company. These patients were transported by spine boards down 6 flights of stairs to boats where they were taken to the tulane parking garage for export. There they had to wait anotherfew hours before finally being airlifted out. One didn't make it through transport - a 25 year old with two kids whose mother last saw him seizing in the truck as he left for the helipad. This left us with 30 critical patients that were in dire need of medical care. We at this point, were unable to get radiography or any kind of lab work - being forced to rely on clinical observations to treat the sickest patients in the hospital. Thursday morning, we were again told that we'd be receiving federal support, but at that point found the idea laughable and again started to arrange for private transport for our patients. One of our staff arranged for air flights for all of our criticals, another arranged for trucks to transport us to the nearby parking garage, while we scrambled to find them all spots at local hospitals. Finally we got the green light and doctors, nurses, staff from all around the hospital scrambled to strap these patients to boards, carry them downstairs in the dark (some of them down 12 flights) and load them on national guard trucks (mobilized by one of our physicians with connections, not any state or federal agency, who later got reprimanded for making the arrangements). These patients were then driven two blocks to the parking garage, some of them getting shot at by those still in the city. There they were loaded into pickup trucks and driven to the top of the garage. All of this occurred as rapidly as possible, only to be placed in a holding pattern at the top of the garage while the tulane hospital staff and families were evacuated. Seriously, we had eleven patients needing ventilators who had to be continuously bagged while these completely healthy people were evacuated from the site. At one point a chinook helicopter landed and we ran upstairs with several stretchers only to be turned away at the top of the garage while staff was loaded onto the bird. It was one of the most disgusting displays of selfishness I've seen - one of our staff took pictures of all the people who took the hippocratic oath, yet were willing to get onto these helicopters while the critically ill and dying were having us breathe for them. We lost two more patients while awaiting transport up there. Two of the three deaths I described were patients I personally cared for- the 25 year old who was overdue for dialysis, and a sweet little old lady who was a nursing home resident. I am absolutely positive both were entirely preventable had they been evacuated in a prompt manner. I was medivacced out with the final two patients as they needed medical personnel in the chopper (a huey - pretty cool flight) while a handful of nurses and residents had to stay behind, sleeping overnight on the top floor of the parkin garage as transport back to the hospital was too dangerous. Talking to them yesterday, they said sleep was impossible as gunfire surrounded the garage.
Patient care aside, the issue of safety within the downtown area led to the need for doctors and nurses to team with hospital security and patrol the lower floors of the hospital with personal firearms to prevent entrance of looters into the hospital. At the meeting where this plan was detailed the statement was made that
"we need to protect ourselves because we have no help from anyone else". That was Wednesday night, almost three full days after the hurricane hit. Staff was told to stay inside the hospital and not to shine lights out the windows as it would make them targets.
While I did not want this email to become political in nature, I feel it's imperative that people realize the depth of the ineptitude in response to this disaster. Governor Blanco made a public announcement on Tuesday that Charity Hospital had been evacuated, and had the media not gotten involved (and believe me, I never thought I'd be thanking them), it's hard to know what response we may have seen. I urge you to seek out information beyond what Chertoff calls
a "magnificent job" on the part of FEMA and the federal agencies. This entire response needs to be analyzed, the administration held accountable, and changes made to prevent future deficiencies in response to similar natural disasters. Please contact me if you're interested in political action. However, it's necessary now to focus on those who have been displaced by the hurricane. Our staff has all been evacuated from the hospital and many are meeting out here in baton rouge to start the next phase of recovery. The public support for those affected here has been overwhelming and I
want to thank everyone who has participated. I'm going today to the triage area to start work again, and, depending on the resources at hand, may make future pleas for more help- I fear the
magnitude of this disaster is not yet realized.
Instances like these, I feel, bring out either the best or the worst in people - and I would never trade the filth, fear, and work over the past few days for being able to see the amazing
dedication, teamwork and love of everyone within the hospital and all of your support. Thank you so much for your concern, the multiple emails and messages I had waiting for me here have been very humbling. I love you all.
-Brandon