Posted on 09/04/2005 12:04:39 PM PDT by Fawn
AP Photo GAGB101
Associated Press Writer
ATLANTA (AP) - As Valerie Bennett was evacuated from a New Orleans hospital, rescuers told her there was no room in the boat for her dogs. She pleaded. ``I offered him my wedding ring and my mom's wedding ring,'' the 34-year-old nurse recalled Saturday. They wouldn't budge. She and her husband could bring only one item, and they already had a plastic tub containing the medicines her husband, a liver transplant recipient, needed to survive. Such emotional scenes were repeated perhaps thousands of times along the Gulf Coast last week as pet owners were forced to abandon their animals in the midst of evacuation.
In one example reported last week by The Associated Press, a police officer took a dog from one little boy waiting to get on a bus in New Orleans. ``Snowball! Snowball!'' the boy cried until he vomited. The policeman told a reporter he didn't know what would happen to the dog.
At the hospital, a doctor euthanized some animals at the request of their owners, who feared they would be abandoned and starve to death. He set up a small gas chamber out of a plastic-wrapped dog kennel.
``The bigger dogs were fighting it. Fighting the gas. It took them longer. When I saw that, I said 'I can't do it,''' said Bennett's husband, Lorne.
Valerie Bennett left her dogs with the anesthesiologist, who promised to care for about 30 staff members' pets on the roof of the hospital, Lindy Boggs Medical Center.
``He said he'd stay there as long as he possibly could,'' Valerie Bennett recalled, speaking from her husband's bedside at Atlanta's Emory University Hospital.
On Saturday afternoon, she said she saw a posting on a Web site called petfinder.com that said the anesthesiologist was still caring for the animals.
Louisiana State Treasurer John Kennedy, who was helping with relief efforts Saturday, said some evacuees refused to leave without their pets.
``One woman told me 'I've lost my house, my job, my car and I am not turning my dog loose to starve,''' Kennedy said.
Kennedy said he persuaded refugees to get on the bus by telling them he would have the animals taken to an exhibition center.
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals picked up two cats and 15 dogs, including one Kennedy found tied up beneath the overpass next to an unopened can of dog food with a sign that read ``Please take care of my dog, his name is Chucky.''
The fate of pets is a huge but underappreciated cause of anguish for storm survivors, said Richard Garfield, professor of international clinical nursing at New York's Columbia University.
``People in shelters are worried about 'Did Fluffy get out?''' he said. ``It's very distressing for people, wondering if their pets are isolated or starving.''
The Bennetts had four animals, including two beloved dogs.
They moved to Slidell, La., in July when Valerie took a job at an organ transplant institute connected to Lindy Boggs. Lorne, a former paramedic, is disabled since undergoing a liver transplant in 2001.
On Saturday, as Hurricane Katrina approached, both went to the hospital to help and took all four animals with them.
They fed their guinea pig and left it in its cage in a patient room. They couldn't refill its empty water bottle because the hospital's plumbing failed Sunday, they said. They poured food on the floor for the cat, but again no water.
``I just hope that they forgive me,'' Valerie Bennett cried.
It's hardly that simple. Are the lives of the rapists, the looters, the shooters-at-rescuers, worth more than the life of a good faithful dog?
In any case, I agree with those who point out that real-world rescues are hardly as starkly simple a choice as "one or the other lives, and the other dies". Only in the most ridiculously contrived hypotheticals would saving an animal along with its owner actually condemn some other human to death.
ROFL!
[it's so hard not to take a cheap shot at him right now]...:))
"Are the lives of the rapists, the looters, the shooters-at-rescuers, worth more than the life of a good faithful dog? "
Game, set and match.
Well played...:)
Eyes drooping. Must sleep. This game seems to be winding down anyway. Ichneumon won! I'd elect you dog catcher any day! G'nite folks.
I'm sorry, but I cannot believe in any god that would demand that of me. If God give me the gift of an animal to love and care for, there is no way I would abandon that animal even in the face of such adversity as this terrible hurricane. I would kill the animal myself rather than leave it alone to fend for itself in that nightmare.
It is entirely possible to do both at the same time -- save people and save animals. I saw several such rescues today alone, where helicopters picked up both people and their dogs off roofs.
I was raised a Roman Catholic. You know -- the original Christians. I reject such thinking out of hand. It's nonsense. Again, we can do both. It is not a matter of one or the other.
Geraldo Riviera helped rescue an elderly woman who had stayed behind in New Orleans rather than leave her beloved 15 1/2 year old dog. Geraldo and the team of rescuers with him took the old woman and the dog. Later he looked her up at the airport. The little dog was still with her. Someone had given her a little bowl of water for the dog, and all was well in her world even though she no longer had a home.
When a pet is all you have left in the world, that pet is a treasure beyond price to you. I simply do not believe the merciful Lord in whom I believe expects otherwise.
Your version of Christianity is hard, cold and heartless.
Night sweety...hug yer critters for me....:)
My local Christian radio station ran a short "perspective" type of commentary on the question "Do you feel fortunate or unfortunate?"
Several scenarios were presented and the hurricane was central to most of the examples.
The commentator told of a NO man who lost everything except his little dog "Cuddles".
He then asked would we consider this man fortunate or unfortunate?
I instantly thought "fortunate" for I'd count myself blessed to escape with not only my life but the lives of my beloved dogs.
"hard, cold and heartless."
Legalism always is.
Christ made it a point to chastise those keeping the letter of the law whilst ignoring the spirit of the law.
["rescuing a donkey from a ditch on the Sabbath" springs to mind]...;)
Give up. Most of these people would toss a baby overboard without regret to save their own animal. They have stated it outright. If another human needed rescue, my pets would have to fend for themselves, as much as I love them.
That's an excellent reminder of what Jesus was really all about -- love, mercy, compassion. I care little for the trappings of organized religion. But I do believe in a loving, merciful God, Who has blessed me with, among other things, the companionship of some wonderful animals through the years. In my worldview, to betray my animals is to betray the God who made them and lent them to me for safekeeping until He was ready to call them home.
That's a terrible slander, and not true at all. Why is it so difficult for people with your mindset to grasp that it is entirely possible to save both people and their pets simultaneously. It has been going on all over the disaster area. For every rescuer who says no pets, there's another one who takes both people and pets. There doesn't seem to be any hard and fast rule about it.
I watched two guys being rescued from a roof in New Orleans today by a United States Air Force chopper. They had a small dog with them. The dog went in the basket and onto the help with the 2nd guy.
As I said above, if I were truly faced with no other choice, I'd kill my dogs myself rather than just abandon them. As others have said, the choice is rarely so stark.
On any thread regarding animals, there are always those willing to surf by and hurl a puppy bomb into the discussion. No one on the thread has yet replied that they consider animal life above or equal to human life, they just share a common concern about the critters of this world caught in the same disaster as their betters. No one has posted "Save Dogs Not People!", nor "Save the Cats, Let the People Drown!". No, no one on this forum has posted such nonsense. Just their concern and the hope that consideration can be shown to God's lessor creatures when time and resource permit.
But then, some dick-head always has to swagger in on the thread, hike his pants up to his belly, spit and declare in a condescending manner, what is already obvious to all.
The only contribution these people make to such a thread with their "reality check", is to inform one and all that they have a superiority complex. The only information that they impart to the discussion that is of any value , is that they are a poster who needs to be avoided and ignored.
Now, don't you have some kittens to drown?!
As you say it is not a zero sum game. On a bus there is room on my lap for my dog for a long long ride. There is not room on my lap for a 200 lb. male for a long long ride.
Very well said.
Profoundly funny................;^)
This "contrived" example is precisely what is happening in New Orleans as small boats move across the city.
Get real.
Perhaps that is true as a concept. For your sake, however, never make me choose between you and my dog.
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