Louisiana Doctor Cleared in Patient Deaths Recalls Storm

[Hissyspit]

Source: Associated Press

La. doctor cleared in patient deaths recalls storm
By MARY FOSTER (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
July 21, 2008 12:18 AM EDT

NEW ORLEANS -

- snip -

Pou, the doctor accused - and later cleared - of giving lethal doses of drugs to four patients during the chaos recalled the four days of misery in a recent interview with The Associated Press. It was her most detailed account of the scene where 34 patients died since the storm three years ago. "You can't really understand what it was like if you weren't there," Pou said. "Nothing can describe it."

- snip -

After the storm passed Monday, Aug. 29, it seemed the decision not to evacuate patients and staff was a good one. They didn't know levees were collapsing. "We made it through the storm pretty good," Pou remembered. "On Monday, it was just a little hot, but we had some generators working and food and water twice a day." By Tuesday, water was rising in the streets, eventually reaching 10 feet. The hospital basement flooded and the generators failed. When nightfall came, the hospital and the city were in darkness. Water pressure dropped, toilets backed up and the temperatures began to swelter. "The smell got to be rancid in no time," Pou said. "It burned the back of your throat."

- snip -

They gathered supplies, rationed food and water with non-patients, and prayed. About seven medical staffers, including Pou, stayed with patients. Others went to the roof and the ground floor to coordinate the intermittent rescue efforts with the few boats and helicopters that showed up. "When a helicopter left, we never knew if they would be back," Pou recalled. "They might be sent to another rescue. And after dark it was too dangerous for them to fly at all." Under the military's orders, the staff did reverse triage. The healthiest patients were taken out first in an effort to save the greatest number of people. Many had to be carried to the roof. It was slow, backbreaking work, with as many as 10 people struggling up the dark stairs with a stretcher. At least 34 people died waiting for rescuers.

- snip -

A year after their arrest, the New Orleans district attorney dropped charges against the nurses, and a grand jury refused to indict Pou. Two civil lawsuits in the deaths are pending. "I felt very alone," Pou said of her year of fighting the criminal accusations. "Even if people were around me I felt an intense loneliness. It was as if no one knew what I was going through." Pou's supporters believed she and the nurses acted heroically. A group of doctors and nurses held a rally on the anniversary of her arrest, and hundreds turned in support.




Read more: http://enews.earthlink.net/article/nat?guid=20080720/488409c0_3ca6_1552620080721-725638511

[Skittles]

1. it will always break my heart to think about it

I'll never understand how, after an investigation, they were arrested :thumbsdown:

I will forward this article to my cousin in Iowa who recently made a distasteful remark to me regarding Iowa vs Katrina (I blasted him saying there WAS NO COMPARISON).

[Skidmore]

4. No, there was no comparison; and I'm an Iowan saying this.

[glowing]

2. While the real criminals continue to occupy the White House.

[Lasher]

3. I remember this.

She and the nurses should have been given medals. But instead these heroes have been persecuted all this time. Junior and Brownie sure do need their scapegoats.

[hedgehog]

5. Why didn't the military land some troops there to assist in evacuating patients?

I'm sure there were plenty of soldiers and sailors in the general area who would have been glad to haul stretchers to the roof. The comment about not knowing if helicopters would return to evacuate more patients is telling as well. Someone should have been in contact with whoever was in charge at the hospital. Remember, it wasn't the hurricane that did the damage in New Orleans; it was the breeching levees. Functioning hospitals weren't that far away.

[panzerfaust]

6. The US Navy had an amphib warfare ship off the coast

... with hundreds of hospital beds, and operating rooms. They were actually ordered to stand-down by Bush/FEMA.

Had I been the ship's captain, I would have pressed on (they had already launched some boats), which is why the Navy would never have made me a ship's captain...

[Joanne98]

7. Isn't this just the way it is. ONLY the mercy is condemned!

I pray, with all my heart, that every single person, who made a profit off Katrina, dies and rots in HELL!

[Psyop Samurai]

8. Of course, we remember the Doctors' plight, and so much more.

Those doctors are the ones that should be filing criminal charges.

You know, I honestly felt at the time (for a day or two, anyway) that the civil war had begun. There simply was no way that people were not going to fight back against these killers and everything they represent.

I was wrong.

Thank you, Hissyspit.