Here are some real heroes and heroines--the staffs of the two hospitals who risked life and limb to stay with and save their patients:
Hospital evacuation update
Friday 9:30 p.m.
The total evacuation of the 2,200 storm-stranded patients and staff at Charity and University hospitals is now complete, a top hospital official said Friday night.
About 150 staff and students at the affiliated Medical Education Building downtown are still holed up in their facility but should be moved out soon, said Don Smith Burg, chief executive officer of the Louisiana State University Hospital System, which oversees the medical institutions.
“The buildings are empty,” Burg said, marking the end of an exhausting week of privation at the public hospitals, where supplies of basic provisions ran so low that some staff inserted IV solutions in their arms to stay hydrated.
Some staff members abstained from food and water for days so that the 363 patients would have sufficient nutrition, Burg said. The patients included 28 babies.
Three of the patients died as rescuers were evacuating them, Burg said.
The Charity morgue was left underwater, with a dozen bodies in the morgue and five more on the steps, Burg said. He did not know how many of the bodies were there before the storm.
FEMA evacuated the patients to hospitals across the region, and staff were taken to shelters and other locations.