Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital

Early on the fourth day, August 31, the Coast Guard offers to fly out more patients, especially “the seven LifeCare patients on ventilators” (110), but Dr. Deichmann asks them to wait till daybreak. He believes at night it’s “too dangerous to reopen the helipad. The staff needed rest” (110). 

A man walks through the hospital, shouting: “The boats are here! Get down there! You can take one bag! No animals!” (112). Patients and family members shuffle sleepily downstairs, only to learn that there aren’t any boats. They trudge back upstairs, where some discover their extra belongings have gone missing. 

The backup generators begin to fail. Attempts to repair them prove inadequate. At 2 a.m., the last of the three generators fails. Only battery power remains. Without power, moving LifeCare patients is a lengthy and tedious process. They must be taken on stretchers down the stairs to the second floor, where they are passed through a maintenance-room delivery hole to the garage; trucks then drive them up the spiral driveway to the helipad, where they await rescue. Nurses and staffers are exhausted by the effort.  

Many of the elderly patients, some portly, some dehydrated, overheat in the stifling air.