Through Hell and High Water

Chapter 18: FOR ONE HOSPITAL, A MARINE PROTECTOR AND A FINAL EXIT

By Jane O. Hansen | Tuesday, May 23, 2006, 01:46 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

New Orleans — *The Tulane Hospital parking garage shook as the sky lit up in one spectacular explosion, followed by three smaller ones. Flames shot 1,000 feet into the air.

It was 4:35 a.m., Friday, Sept. 2. Everyone on the rooftop jolted awake. It felt like an earthquake. It was actually a chemical depot exploding. But after four days of isolation, and having come to believe that their own government had abandoned them, the doctors, nurses and administrators had no idea what it was. In that moment between sleep and wakefulness, their minds ran amok.

Attack helicopters are firing missiles, Dr. Granville Morse thought.

The feds couldn’t fix this so they decided to nuke it, thought Dr. Ben deBoisblanc.

Dr. Jennifer McGee, a chief resident for trauma surgery assigned to Charity Hospital, was among those who had spent the night in the garage after laboring for hours to get the sickest patients evacuated by helicopter. Concern for them had been paramount. Now, for the first time, she worried about herself.

I’m going to die, she thought. I’m not going to get out of here.

A young Marine was their defender. He had touched down in their makeshift bedroom earlier that night, and would soon win a place in their hearts. He told them he had just returned from his second tour of duty in Iraq.

He looked no older than 25. But what he lacked in size and age, he made up in confidence. A member of a Marine sniper team, he was a fearless Rambo who sprinted along the edge of the parapet encircling the garage roof. He would dive full-length onto the narrow wall, pointing his M-16 to the streets below. He’s going to fall off, they thought.

In other circumstances, his antics might have seemed bizarre. But in this frightening, surreal situation — with armed looters roaming the flooded city and fires and explosions dotting the horizon — his actions seemed perfectly normal. This was a war zone and those on the rooftop found his presence, and his weapon, reassuring.

As the sun rose, Dr. Ben, director of Charity’s medical intensive care unit, prepared to return to his hospital across the street to bring back more patients to the helipad. Although the most critical were gone, more than 200 patients were still stranded at Charity, along with about 800 staff and family members.

Jim Montgomery, president of Tulane Hospital, told Dr. Ben that his residents on the rooftop were welcome to get in line with the hundreds of Tulane employees and family members waiting to leave. Dr. Ben told the young doctors they were free to go, but he was returning to Charity.

An emotional struggle ensued as Morse and several other residents debated whether to wade back through the filthy water or leave by helicopter.

They forged an agreement: If a boat or truck arrived before the last helicopter, they would return to Charity and help rescue the remaining patients. If the helicopter came first, they would climb aboard and leave.

Shortly after Dr. Ben and a handful of others left for Charity, a 55,000-pound Chinook appeared on the horizon. It was followed by a second, then a third.

The mission Tulane administrators had thought would take days to accomplish was over in 2 1/2 hours as 50 to 60 people boarded each massive helicopter. Mel Lagarde, a division president of the Hospital Corporation of America, didn’t know why the flow of military choppers had resumed; he believed they were a gift from God.

By late morning, the garage was nearly empty. At last, it was the animals’ turn.

John Holland, the pilot and retired Army colonel who had run the rooftop operation, had been surprised to learn earlier in the week that in addition to the people, there were 79 animals waiting to get out. They were the pets of employees and family members who had brought them to the hospital before Hurricane Katrina hit.

There had been a tense moment when someone ran onto the roof to tell Sharif Omar, We’ve lost one.

The overwrought Tulane administrator, who had been assisting Holland nonstop, thought the person meant a patient. No, we didn’t; no one’s going to die, Omar had said.

But the casualty was a cat. The animal had pitched itself from the sixth-floor railing of the garage to the watery streets below. Many there considered it an act of suicide.

Friday morning, the evacuation of pets looked like Noah’s ark. The procession of animals included an Afghan hound, little bitty dogs, cockatiels, parrots and cats.

As the animals emerged single file with their owners onto the rooftop, they were blasted by the Chinook’s powerful rotor wash and the roar of its turbine engines. Those watching could see the fear in the animals’ eyes. It was as if they were saying to their owners, My God, what are you asking me to do?

John Holland had left the Tulane rooftop at around 3 Friday morning, turning over the air traffic control mission to Stiles Clarke, a MedFlight administrator and paramedic. Holland had refused to leave until the last of Charity’s critical patients was off the rooftop.

By midday Friday, among the handful of people left were Lagarde, Clarke, two ham radio operators and the Marine. Lagarde’s mission shifted to turning the helicopter operation over to Charity.

When he was unable to contact anyone across the street by phone, he decided to go over by boat to talk directly to whoever was running Charity’s command post.

Lagarde went down to “the beach” — where the water came up the ramp of the parking garage — and started to board an airboat operated by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, when suddenly a report crackled over the radio: Gunfire in the area. People in boats are being targeted.

Lagarde returned to the roof.

In Nashville, Jack Bovender, CEO of HCA, made contact Friday with Dr. Jim Aiken, medical director for emergency preparedness and one of those in charge at Charity Hospital. It was easier to make a phone connection from out of town than from across the street. Nashville patched through Lagarde, and the three held a conference call.

Bovender told Aiken that Tulane officials were waiting for Charity to set up a command-and-control structure on the garage rooftop so they could hand over the operation. Aiken would need to send his own people over to run it. The Tulane doctors and nurses were now gone, and they would need to send ample medical staff with their patients.

Stuck at Charity all week, Aiken had seen the helicopters flying every which way. He had glimpsed the massive Chinooks dodging buildings as they lumbered over the city. It reminded him of the evacuation of Saigon. He knew the pilots were risking their lives. He was not the only one who considered it a miracle that none of the choppers had crashed.

Dr. Ben’s daring and desperate plan to take Charity’s sickest patients through the water to Tulane had terrified Aiken. He felt responsible, as if by allowing them to go, he had put them in harm’s way. He never could have forgiven himself if anything had happened to them.

Now Aiken felt they had pressed their luck with the helicopter evacuation. What about the sniper fire? What if thugs commandeered the boats carrying patients?

Bovender offered to continue sending helicopters at HCA’s expense until all the Charity people were out. But Aiken turned down the offer. By then, he had reason to believe his people would be going out by ground.

It was a little after noon on Friday. After Aiken hung up, Bovender told Lagarde:

Mel, get on the next helicopter. Just get out of there.

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