[brian]

New Orleans Hospital Nurse: “I Couldn't Understand Why Nobody Was Coming To Help Us”...

Describing a desperate and harrowing struggle to comfort dying patients as floodwaters rose and the city descended into chaos, hospital staffers from Memorial Medical Center said today that 45 people died there during a six-day vigil.
Dave Goodson, director of support services at the hospital, said rescuers came and left — sometimes they helped take someone from the hospital and other times they brought new evacuees plucked from rooftops.




NEW ORLEANS -- Describing a desperate and harrowing struggle to comfort dying patients as floodwaters rose and the city descended into chaos, hospital staffers from Memorial Medical Center said today that 45 people died there during a six-day vigil.

Dave Goodson, director of support services at the hospital, said rescuers came and left — sometimes they helped take someone from the hospital and other times they brought new evacuees plucked from rooftops.

Elderly patients had the hardest time, Goodson said. Heat and sickness conspired to kill about 16 patients from a nearby convalescent hospital.

"I can tell you it was 106 degrees in that hospital" in the days after the storm, he said. Goodson described the heroic efforts of doctors and nurses who comforted ailing patients — even fanning some to cool them.

Goodson said that their hopes rose when they heard helicopters coming toward them, but the patients weren't airlifted — instead, supplies and evacuees who had escaped their homes in nearby neighborhoods were dropped off.

Joanne Lalla, an oncology nurse, said at least one patient was brought to the hospital with a stab wound.

Goodson said that at one point, National Guardsmen came to the hospital and evacuated some patients and promised to come back for more — but then the floodwaters rose. They didn't return until Friday, Goodson said.

Lalla said that she "couldn't understand why nobody was coming to help us."

Full Story: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...home-headlines

[Judee Smudee]

We have several family members in their 80s. They can't stop talking about the fact that the old, very young and sick appeared to be abandoned during this calamity. I guess a lot of us can't stop talking about it.

[Dixielee]

I can't imagine the horror and frustration those people went through. I only pray that they can get thru this without too much emotional damage.

[lee1]

Originally Posted by Dixielee

I can't imagine the horror and frustration those people went through. I only pray that they can get thru this without too much emotional damage.

What I can't imagine is how come they were not evacuated to begin with???