Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital (87 page)

 
30
Fournier polled another of the doctors, Bryant King
: Bryant King interview with state investigators in October 2005. Fournier in her February 2006 interview with investigators said in general terms that King seemed upset by what she told him, and she thought that was why he left. She believed this conversation to have taken place on Wednesday evening, whereas King thought it was on Thursday morning.

 
31
“I’m a Catholic”
and
telling them that “evil entities”
: Dr. Bryant King, his sister, Rachelle, his best friend, Dr. Eric Griggs, and NPR reporter Joanne Silberner, who interviewed Griggs that day, said they no longer had copies of the messages. The description of these messages is based on King’s October 2005 recollections of them in an interview with state investigators.

 
32
Handwritten note
: The note was written by Aviation Services, Inc., coordinator Don Berry in the ten a.m. to noon time frame, he recalled in 2013.

 
33
She wore a scrub shirt with the arms ripped off and little shoes
: According to the recollections of LifeCare staff members.

 
34
He, like many others, had been concerned
: Smith, Stephen and Marcella Bombardieri, “Power Gone, Food Low, Doctors Focused on Life,”
Boston Globe
, September 14, 2005. Kokemor confirmed this with the author.

 
35
“Your mother is dying”
: Kathryn Nelson, interview with state investigators October 3, 2005, and with the author, November 28, 2007. Therese Mendez remembered (interview July 1, 2013) that Kathryn Nelson strongly resisted leaving on Thursday, and Mendez recalled having spoken very firmly to Nelson to motivate her to go downstairs so she wouldn’t miss the chance to leave.

 
36
The nurse administered a small dose
: Nelson’s nurse, Cynthia Chatelain, recalled in an interview with state investigators (January 6, 2006) that she gave Nelson 1 mg of morphine and 1 mg of Ativan.

 
37
told her that they were under martial law
: This belief was commonly cited by staff at Memorial, particularly LifeCare staff, interviewed by investigators after the storm. It is not surprising, given how often this incorrect assertion was repeated on the radio, to which some people may have been listening. Therese Mendez said (July 2013) it was like a “vapor” that spread through the hospital.

 
38
“I’m getting out of here”
: Dr. Bryant King, interview with state investigators, 2005. These first recollections are consistent with later ones, including his 2008 deposition in a case brought against the hospital by Elaine Nelson’s son, Craig, and in an interview with the author in 2007: “When I saw Anna with all those syringes in her hand, I was like Anna, that’s fucking crazy, you can’t possibly be serious.” (“You said that?”) “I’ve never been someone who keeps thoughts in my head.” Dr. Bill Armington in an interview with the author recalled seeing Dr. King leaving, upset, as did Fournier in an interview with investigators in 2006: “He was upset and angry about it, is the impression I got, so he left. I was upset and angry about it, and I stayed.” The timing of Dr. King’s departure has been a point of contention, with some at the hospital later saying they believed he left on Wednesday and could therefore not have witnessed events in the second floor lobby on Thursday. However, the specificity of Dr. King’s recollections on Thursday and the fact that numerous employees recalled seeing and working with him that day indicate that he was indeed present.

 
39
“I think you ought to go”
: Dosch, interview with author June 4, 2013. Mr. Goux did not respond to a request to fact check the material in the book. However, in an interview 2009, when the author asked about the injections on the seventh floor (I did not ask specifically about the second floor), Mr. Goux said, “I was not aware that was going on.” He told state investigators in 2005 that he had heard rumors of euthanasia happening at Memorial very soon after he left the hospital, “everywhere I turned. I can tell you when the first time I heard that it was shocking.”

 
40
“because you’re nurses”
: Ms. Janice Jenkins and Ms. Karen Wynn, interviews with author.

 
41
Wynn and Pou requested
: Anonymous e-mail to author. Therese Mendez, in an interview with state investigators, also recalled Dr. Pou asking for injection supplies when she was upstairs in LifeCare.

 
42
Pou called for someone with a light
: Nurse Jeffrey Caffall interview with state investigators, March 6, 2006.

 
43
Another very young nurse
: Julie Couvillon interview with investigators, October 26, 2005. Couvillon said she heard from her nursing director, who was not involved, that the patients were given potassium, morphine, and Versed. Couvillon noticed a box against the wall near the catwalk with vials of potassium chloride. This box was still present and filled with mostly sealed bottles when investigators later searched the hospital, and there are
photographs of it. The potassium chloride was used to euthanize pets. However, nobody involved in the injections of patients and interviewed by the author recalled that potassium chloride was used to hasten the deaths of human beings. The drug cannot be detected by postmortem toxicology.

 
44
She was also haunted
: Wynn did not name Ewale, but her recollections were consistent with other sources. The amount of morphine and Ativan he received was not indicated, but nurse Leah Boudreaux wrote in Ewale’s chart what appears to be a summary of his last hours, including, at ten a.m.: “Pt still unresponsive, choking on secretions but unable to suction pt due to conditions. Morphine given for comfort.” Several aspects of the account are strange. Portable suction was used in other areas of the hospital. There are no orders for the medication. Wynn, in her interview with the author, said she was told that the patient had begged for help, but the nurses’ notes all indicate that he was unresponsive. In Budo,
Katrina
, p. 79, a nurse with the pseudonym “Pal” wrote that on Wednesday she stayed with an ICU patient who “was very ill, close to death. Foam was bubbling out of his mouth. The hospital systems had failed the night before; I had no way to suction him. He had some sedation ordered for his comfort. I gave it to him. His eyes were open, he was looking at me. I just held his hand. It was a horrific thing to watch. I don’t think he would have survived even if I had been able to suction him.”

 
45
A nurse approached
: The nurse spoke of these events on condition of anonymity. This section is based on her interview with investigators conducted several months after the storm, interviews with other nurses who interacted with her, and, to a much lesser extent, her later recollections of the events, which she felt were very fuzzy, in interviews with the author in 2010 and 2013.

 
46
Culotta saw Lagasse was in respiratory distress
: Roy Culotta interview with state investigators, November 28, 2005. His account was largely consistent in his later deposition (February 23, 2010) in a civil case brought by Merle Lagasse’s family.

PART 2: RECKONING
CHAPTER 8

Interviews

Dr. Horace Baltz; family of Jannie Burgess (Linette Burgess Guidi, Gladys Clark Smith, Bertha Mitchell, Johnny Clark); Tony Carnes; Catherine Chatelain; James Cobb Jr.; Dr. Ewing Cook; Minnie Cook; Curtis Dosch; family of Emmett Everett (Carrie Everett, Emmett Everett Jr.); Linda Gagliano (stepdaughter of John Russell); L. René Goux; Cathy Green; Dr. Robert Hendler; Gina Isbell; Karen Lagasse (daughter of Merle Lagasse); Angela McManus (daughter of Wilda McManus); Therese Mendez; Robert Middleberg; Dr. Helen Miller; Dr. Frank Minyard; LT/O3E Sean Moore; Stephanie Moore; Alfred Lee Moses; Dr. Bong Mui; family of Elaine Nelson (Craig Nelson and Kathryn Nelson); Dr. Daniel W. Nuss; Brenda and Tabatha O’Bryant; Cheri Pizani; Dr. Anna Pou; Michelle Pitre-Ryals; Dr. Christopher Sanford; Douglas Savoie Jr. (grandson of Rose Savoie); Arthur Schafer; Richard T. Simmons Jr.; Dr. John Skinner; Dr. John Thiele; Dr. John Walsh; Dr. Cyril Wecht; Tony Zumbado.

Note
: Investigative interviews and other events sourced clearly in the text are generally not noted here.

Notes

  
1
in exchange for what she thought
: Mary Rose Bernard interview with state investigators, June 26, 2006: “I pleaded with Fox News and they said well we will see what we can do to get your family out, if you agree to be interviewed.”

  
2
“You could have gotten out”
: Anita Vogel, correspondent, “Hurricane Katrina’s Aftermath,” Fox News Network,
On the Record with Greta Van Susteren
, September 1, 2005, ten p.m. Also, StoryCorps interview of Pamela Mathews, Edwin Mathews, and Jo Lincks, MBX006447.

  
3
National Guardsmen from San Diego
: Gross, Gregory Alan, “S.D. Guardsmen Find Life, Death in Waters,”
San Diego Union Tribune
, September 7, 2005;
http://legacy.utsandiego.com/news/nation/katrina/20050907-9999-1n7guard.html
.

  
4
Christianity Today
magazine reporter
: Tony Carnes’s photograph of Memorial’s chapel was picked up by the
New York Times
and is not easily forgotten:
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2005/09/18/national/19victimsCA01ready.html
.

  
5
“It was like a picture of hell.”
: Chaplain Hy McEnery on CNN, September 16, 2005.
an interview with a Baton Rouge television reporter
: Aired on WBRZ, September 12, 2005. Portions were later re-aired on CNN.

  
6
St. Rita’s
: For more on St. Rita’s, see: Cobb, James, Jr.
Flood of Lies
:
The St. Rita’s Nursing Home Tragedy
(Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 2013); Junod, Tom, “The Loved Ones,”
Esquire
(September 2006);
http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0906NEWORLEANS_216
; Mead, Robert A., “St. Rita’s and Lost Causes: Improving Nursing Home Emergency Preparedness,”
Marquette Elder’s Advisor
(Spring 2006).

  
7
in an essay for
Modern Healthcare: Hirsch, Les, “ ‘We had to Evacuate Soon,’ ”
Modern Healthcare
(September 12, 2005);
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20050912/NEWS/509120323
.

  
8
She left messages on Goux’s cell phone […] she wanted to get her own lawyer before answering
: Affidavit of Anna Pou, MD, January 13, 2006, and hearing transcript, “In re: Doctor Anna Maria Pou,” Orleans Parish criminal district court, the Honorable Calvin Johnson, Judge, presiding, January 17, 2006.

  
9
The network agreed to pay Simmons
: Letter from Pou’s attorney to Phelps Gay and Lauren McHugh, “Re: Dr. Anna Pou’s Claim for Reimbursement of Legal Fees.” Attachment A, “Memorandum from Richard T. Simmons Jr. counsel for Dr. Anna Pou,” 4. Documents filed with the Attorney Fee Review Board, Louisiana State Legislature and obtained by author through public records request.

 
10
One of the first things Simmons did
: Pou said that she retained Simmons on September 19, 2005, the date of her initial conversation with Tenet officials, however, in the fee review matter, Simmons told the State of Louisiana that he represented her beginning in October 2005.

 
11
The US attorney for southeast Louisiana had opened
: Investigative memoranda provided by the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Investigator General in response to author’s FOIA request reflect this.

 
12
“I told you so”
: Cobb,
Flood of Lies
.

 
13
Ferncrest Manor
: Investigative memorandum, Ferncrest Manor Living Center, HHS OIG case 6-05-00497-9, September 17, 2007.

 
14
mandated evacuations of nursing
: According to US Senate,
Hurricane Katrina
:
A Nation Still Unprepared
, Chapter 16, p. 248, a draft version of Mayor Nagin’s evacuation order did exempt
nursing homes. That was changed on the suggestion of Col. Terry Ebbert, New Orleans’s homeland security and public safety director, who noted their vulnerability.

 
15
About two-thirds of the affected nursing homes had kept residents in place […] but rescue came too late
: Hull, Anne and Doug Struck, “At Nursing Home, Katrina Dealt only the First Blow,”
Washington Post
, September 23, 2005;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/22/AR2005092202263.html
.

 
16
at Chateau Living Center
: In litigation over deaths at Chateau, representatives of the nursing home asserted that after the private company refused to provide buses, they attempted to hire Greyhound buses for the evacuation, but it was too late because highways were closed and high winds had moved into the area. An earlier HHS OIG investigation memo (September 25, 2006) stated: “There is conflicting evidence as to whether the bus company was notified of the facility’s intent to evacuate in a timely manner, or whether the bus company did not fulfill its obligations to provide transportation in a timely manner.” The investigation was later closed.