Yes, it would have been *so* easy to float in there on a boat, avoiding the National Guard and rioters with guns, drag her through the sewage-infested first floor, and take gramma out of there on that same boat. Then drag her back through the streets to...where? Put her in the Convention Center, where she could sit outside in a wheelchair dead for a few days? Keep her on the boat until we could get to dry land somewhere, then get on a bus? Keep the IVs going, keep her hydrated with water that materalized out of nowhere? Be able to medicate her with her prescriptions that I just happened to have? Know how to care for whatever her condition was, until we could get to safety? Care for this critically ill person under those conditions?
I would never say go ahead, kill her. But could I ever judge caregivers who worked under the conditions I saw on TV. Sewage flooding the first floors, very little food or medications, no lights, no electricity, no phones, no circulating air, no toilets, no water. I worked in a hospital for 17 years, I would NOT want to have been caring for critically ill patients under those conditions. While I would be sad, I would be glad her suffering was over and that she was at peace. Some of those poor extremely old people I saw on TV, laying on cardboard on the street, confused, disoriented, in pain, sunburned, dehydrated, being shuffled hither and yon while awaiting some type of rescue? I would not have wanted to see her on TV like that. I’d rather know she went to sleep out of pain and was in a better place.