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DEL.ICIO.USCHAPTER 1: THE EPIC STRUGGLE OF TWO HOSPITALS TO RESCUE THE ABANDONED
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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- audio: Carolyn Lewis describes storm's fury
- audio: How Sherry Hebert comforted son
- photos: Chapter 1
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?
ON MONDAY: Before Katrina hits, two hospitals hunker down, assuming the buildings will be safe. Chapter 2 of 22.
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By Jon Marshall
May 7, 2006 02:45 PM | Link to this
Dear Jane, What a terrific start to your series. I’m hooking. I’m highlighting the first chaper on NewsGems text to be linked, which features the best in American journalism. Best wishes for your continued reporting success, Jon Marshall
By Marilyn Foster
May 7, 2006 07:29 PM | Link to this
Dear Jane Thank You! I am from New Orleans, LA. Born in Charity Hospital. Everybody from New Orleans, and surrounding areas that were affected by Hurricane Katrina I am praying for you and your family, I pray everyday for the nations.To the Powerful Womens that KEEP thereon FAITH and GOD. GOD BLESS YOU! Remember ONE GOD, ONE BODY. This only one story there lots of more.
By William J. Harding
May 7, 2006 08:13 PM | Link to this
My wife and I have a special feeling for New Orleans. We had just returned from a five day cruise to the New Orleans Port on the Carnival Line Sensation the Saturday Morning before Katrina hit. We were supposed to spend the day in New Orleans and catch a 6:00P.M. flight back to Atlanta.
When we went to the airport to check our bags in before returning to Burbon Street, the buzz around the airport led us to try to catch an earlier flight out. Thanks to a patient and cooperative Delta ticket agent we were booked on a 12:00 noon flight out.
It had to be a blessing from God because the airport shut down that Saturday evening at 6:30 P.M. We could have easily been stranded in New Orleans as Katrina came ashore
Our prayers continue to be with all of the people in New Orleans.
By Davis
May 8, 2006 02:01 AM | Link to this
Dear Jane, Thanks for bring undisclosed and reality too some who just dont understand what went on. I didnt live in NOLA but had many friends who lived there. One actually was a nurse at Charity. I am looking forward too reading all the other Chapter. To all from NOLA-Keep the Faith and Hope-God Bless
By Janet Shrader
May 8, 2006 01:58 PM | Link to this
I predict this series will win a Pulitzer…absolutely amazing!
By Jane O. Hansen
May 8, 2006 03:57 PM | Link to this
Thanks for reading and thanks for your comments.
By Michael Daniels
May 9, 2006 04:24 AM | Link to this
My heart goes out to everyone who went through Katrina, and I can tell that Jane has the style to tell the story the way it should be told. I look forward to reading the whole series.
By Vicki Barron, RN, BSN, MEd
May 9, 2006 08:55 AM | Link to this
This is an absolutely wonderful story. I cannot imagine the amount of research that went into writing it. I teach Healthcare Science Technology Education at Randolph-Clay High School in Cuthbert, Georgia. I have ALL of my students reading this series daily. Thank you, Vicki
By cheryl k. hawkins
May 9, 2006 10:53 PM | Link to this
Hi Jane. Thank you so much for doing the research & printing this story!!! I was in N.O. during Hurricane Katrina & I also had to be rescued from the floodwaters. Therefore, I can definately relate to much of the devastation as I read these articles. 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 to handle its next great disaster! As the citizens of New Orleans waited for days to be rescued from our delima, I also kept a chronicled journal of the many events that occurred and stories I collected from others along the way as my father and I tried to flee the city. All of our stories need to be heard because they celebrate the unsung heroes of Hurricane Katrina.
By bee
May 10, 2006 09:26 AM | Link to this
Excellent piece, but consider this: 80% of the city flooded and most of its hospitals, even those that didn’t flood, underwent similar problems- generator failure/power outages,care management of severly ill patients, flood/storm damage, isolation from aid sources. This story is just the tip of the iceberg of what happened in healthcare in this city, and should be required study for emergency planning. If it happened once, it could happen again.
By James Ware
May 10, 2006 05:39 PM | Link to this
Jane. Thank you for the story, although the story line is of tragedy and hope, it is a story that needs to be told. I was born at West Jefferson Hospital during Hurricane Betsy and my Mom has some interesting stories. Mostly of people coming together to help others. Keep pushing forward.
By Fred
May 11, 2006 09:35 AM | Link to this
I would to thank the AJC for this series. My name is Fred and I am Charity baby. I now live Atlanta pre-katrina ; however Nola is my place of birth no matter how much I try to become a Georgia boy Nola is always there reminding me from whence I came. I call Nola my Wicked and Wonderful hometown. Wicked because of how poor are treated and wonderful because of the food, music and people. Yes that is NOLA my wicked and wonderful hometown.
By Kathleen Ward
May 11, 2006 10:21 AM | Link to this
Charity and Tulane - worlds apart, yes — but in the end, during the crisis and the horrors of its aftermath, not so much different. Staffed by loyal, dedicated men and women who struggled to provide whatever care and comfort they could, and who were themselves “marooned” for days without relief, there was little ANYONE could do but weep silently as the situation worsened. I look forward to seeing future installments.
By RICHARD TRUST
May 11, 2006 10:55 AM | Link to this
FROM A YANKEE THAT NOW CALLS NOLA HOME…. ITS ONE GREAT TOWN WITH PEOPLE LIKE NO WHERE ELSE. GOD BLESS AMERICA
By Brandon
May 11, 2006 11:50 AM | Link to this
I love this article. I am a lifelong resident of N.O. born at Charity. I was living on the Westbank when Katrina hit and I stayed. That was the worst decision I have made in my life. Everyone that did not leave has a story to tell but this one is heartfelt. My heart goes out to those mothers. I can’t wait to read on.
By Sharon Mc Coy Bell
May 11, 2006 12:43 PM | Link to this
Just as JFK once said to the Germans of Berlin, “Ich bin ein Berliner”, I am a native New Orleanian.
I was born at Charity Hospital as were my siblings. I was educated in New Orleans. I have spent my life, minus five years in New Hampshire, in New Orleans. And.. if God allows it, I will die in New Orleans.
My youngest sister died at Charity at the age of 38 from brain cancer, unemployed at the time and uninsured.
The people who work at Charity are and have been the finest people and medical professionals in the world. Their commitment to their patience and unselfishness are on display every day, all day.
It is said among New Orleanians that “if you are ill, you can go to just about any hospital. But… if you are sick (and even if you are insured), crawl if you have to, to Charity.
I also was in New Orleans on Canal Street in the CBD during the hurricane, until the Friday after the flood. The dark and the heat and the uncertainity were as close to hell as I ever want to get.
The thought of being ill and in similar circumstances are beyond frightening…
I am not suprised of the superhuman efforts of those at Charity and at Tulane.
Their stories must be told.
Thank you and God bless you.
By
May 11, 2006 08:33 PM | Link to this
I must say, i was about to put this article on ” read later”, but decided to read,when I 1st ran across it. I am glad i did. I am a resident of New Orleans, born and raised. Born in Charity Hospital, and as i read the 1st chapter it brought me inside Charity Hosp., and my heart began to weep. I do know that your continuing chapters will inspire us and cause us to feel and see all that has happened and the strenghts of Human kind ness at such a time. Wonderful beginning….
By Mary P. Goodwin RN, BSN, MA
May 11, 2006 09:26 PM | Link to this
I am a former resident of New Orleans (81’-91’), attended Xavier Prep and lived off of Bullard Ave in the Kingswood Subdivision with my mother (she remained there until 08 27 05) and sisters. During college I worked as a student nurse tech on the 9th floor of Charity and one summer in the Dermatology Clinic of Tulane Medical School. I a familar with the extreme contrast in service levels between the two hospitals even pre-Katrina. That being said there was still one commonality that both facilities shared which this series as wonderfully captured. This common trait was a true committment to well-being of those whose care was entrusted to the staff of both hospitals for care. I have truly enjoyed as a nurse, a healthcare executive and a former resident of NOLA information that highlights what has always been true of that great city. New Orleans is truly unique and the people there are strong and resourceful. With or without the federal government New Orleans will be whole again.
God Bless New Orleanians Everywhere!
By sharon M
May 11, 2006 11:17 PM | Link to this
I worked at Charity Hospital for a number of years. My sister was there along with a few of my friends working. As an employee of the hospital I know the people who worked during the hurricane did their best to survive and to keep their patients alive. From the stories I’ve heard they were intersting,but scary. For the person who brought this story from the hospital into the news. I would like to say Thank You. As for the mother’s of the two son’s. I know you endure a lot of pain and long suffering. For every tear we cry there’s a reason why. May GOD Bless you, keep you in his hands and I will keep you in my prayers.
By m bernard
May 16, 2006 08:34 PM | Link to this
As a 70 year-old native New Orleanian still living in my hometown,I thank all those who have offered us aid—of any kind.
This is the first of the articles that I’ve read, and I intend on reading the others.
Having said that, I want to add that not only Charity and Tulane Hospitals, their staffs and patients went through the trials that the flood, not so much the hurricane, brought. Baptist Hospital’s (now Memorial Medical Center) staff, family members and patients went through the same trials.
I happened to be taken to Baptist by my son who is a department director. The staff at Baptist was as attentive and solicitous to and of their patients as the staffs at Charity and Tulane. The staffs of, I imagine, all hospitals involved performed heroically. They put themselves in great danger to assist their patients, families AND pets. Praise goes to all.
Added to that, I’d like to let you know that those family members of the staff who could did anything asked of them. Whatever it took to take care of the patients was the most important act of the day even though many got little or no sleep. It’s amazing what adrenaline actually does!!
I shall continue reading the next chapter of your articles.