New Orleans nurse delivers under adversity
Toledo native withstood Katrina’s worst
Nurse Cheryl Anderson was used to delivering babies in tough, gritty conditions.
But the Toledo native wasn’t used to doing it “the old-fashioned way,” which she resorted to after Hurricane Katrina trapped her in a near-powerless New Orleans hospital surrounded by a moat of contaminated water.
Covered in never-ending sweat, armed with flashlights, forceps, and no water or serious anesthetic, she remembers thinking about her hospital’s motto: “Where miracles happen and the unusual occurs.”
“Both of those we had in spades with Hurricane Katrina,” said Ms. Anderson, a registered nurse who moved to New Orleans a decade ago to work in the labor and delivery department of University Hospital, part of the Medical Center of Louisiana, a state facility close to downtown.
“No water, no epidurals — we just sucked it up. You gotta be imaginative sometimes, working with the state. You just did it; you did what you had to do,” she said.
She recalls the stark shadows of the hospital’s windowless delivery room, coaxing a young mother in labor for 24 hours to deliver her more than 10-pound baby boy. Diesel generators powered — barely — a few sharply focused portable lights but were far shy of what was required to run the room’s larger machines that support everything from intravenous pressure pumps to air conditioning to the regulation of medication.
Full Story:
New Orleans nurse delivers under adversity [Toledo Blade,OH]
Would you like to comment?
