Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital (91 page)

 
62
In her book
: Adler, Margot.
Drawing Down the Moon
:
Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America
(New York: Penguin, 2006; Viking Press, 1979), 265–274. Additional information about Odun Arechaga came from Nina Levy, his longtime close friend. She arranged for him to be transferred to a nursing home near her in Illinois after Katrina. Arechaga died more than five years later, on January 13, 2011.

 
63
Charity Hospital
: Information for this section is drawn from: call-ins to WWL during the emergency; Berggren, Ruth, “Unexpected Necessities—Inside Charity Hospital,”
NEJM
, 353, 15 (October 13, 2005): 1550–1553; Van Meter, Keith, “Katrina at Charity Hospital: Much Ado About Something,”
The American Journal of the Medical Sciences
, 322, 5 (November 2006): 251–254; Berger, Eric, “Charity Hospital and Disaster Preparedness,”
Annals of Emergency Medicine
, 14, 1 (January 2006): 53–56; Dr. Ben deBoisblanc undated interview with “The Katrina Experience: An Oral History Project,” retrieved from:
http://thekatrinaexperience.net/?p=16#more-16
; StoryCorps interview of Dr. Kiersta Kurtz-Burke
by Justin Lundgren (MBY001596, May 28, 2006); Duggal, Anshu, Janis G. Letourneau, and Leonard R. Bok, “LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans Department of Radiology: Effects of Hurricane Katrina,”
Academic Radiology
, 16, 5 (May 2009): 584–592; Barkemeyer, Brian M., “Practicing Neonatology in a Blackout: The University Hospital NICU in the Midst of Hurricane Katrina: Caring for Children Without Power or Water,”
Pediatrics
117 (2006): S369–374; and interviews with Dr. Kiersta Kurtz-Burke (November 6, 2009), Dr. James Aiken (2007), and informal discussions with others from Charity Hospital. The number of patients varies between sources and is an estimate. A copy of a table generated on November 9, 2005, from the DMORT database lists only one body recovered from Charity and two from University, however nine deaths at Charity are mentioned in US Senate,
Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared,
p. 406, based on a January 2006 Senate staff interview with Charity’s emergency preparedness medical director Dr. James Aiken.

 
64
hospital had been evacuated when
: For example,
CNN Newsnight
carried an interview with Dr. Ruth Berggren on Wednesday, August 31, 2005, at the end of which anchor Aaron Brown referred to Berggren as having been at Charity “until it was evacuated”;
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0508/31/asb.01.html
.

 
65
In mid-September he wrote
: Mandamus Hearing,
Does v. Foti
, transcript (September 11, 2007), pp. 43–44.

 
66
60 Minutes: These recollections about the production of “Was It Murder?” CBS,
60 Minutes
, September 24, 2006, are from interviews with Pou, Simmons, and Wartelle. Kevin Tedesco, executive director of communications for
60 Minutes
(in e-mails in June and July 2013) wrote that CBS, according to company practice, did not provide Mr. Simmons with a copy of the interview, however that CBS standards allow subjects to audiotape their interviews. Tedesco also wrote that Ed Bradley “was never involved in this story as it was properly claimed first by Morley Safer’s producer. The reporters at 60 minutes are famously competitive, however, and it’s routine for them to fight for stories behind the scenes. Everybody at 60 minutes wanted to do this story.”

 
67
American Medical Association
: Interviews with Dr. Eugene Myers (July 10, 2007; November 29, 2007).

 
68
Louisiana State Medical Society
: Interview with Amy Phillips, general counsel for the LSMS (December 2007), and interview with Dr. Donald Palmisano (2008).

 
69
in 1990, he had suggested
: The arrested man who died was Adolph Archie. For background on this and other stories about Minyard’s history, see Baum, Dan.
Nine Lives
:
Death and Life in New Orleans
(New York: Spiegel and Grau, 2009). A sweet profile of Minyard was written by Shaila Dewan, “For Trumpet-Playing Coroner, Hurricane Provides Swan Song,”
New York Times
, October 17, 2005. A more critical interview was conducted by
Frontline
on June 17, 2010:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/post-mortem/interviews/frank-minyard.html
. Minyard sat for roughly a dozen interviews with the author from 2007–2010.

 
70
the expert consultants submitted their reports
: At the conclusion of the criminal case the following year, Attorney General Foti’s office released a lightly redacted version of these reports at a press conference and to a small number of reporters, including the author. Memorial employees filed suit as “Jane and John Does” and successfully stopped further release, but the reports were subsequently posted on the CNN website:
http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/images/08/27/memorial.medical.center.pdf
. Dr. Anna Pou’s response was also posted:
http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/images/08/26/pou.statement.pdf
. It accused the attorney general of releasing the documents “in an effort to justify his prior arrest of Dr. Pou before the upcoming election in October 2007.”

 
71
documented spending
: Records submitted to the attorney fee review board, Louisiana State Legislature by Richard Simmons and obtained by author through public records request.

 
72
remain forever hidden
: 2006-KK-2408, writ application denied, in re: “A Matter Under Investigation” (Parish of Orleans).

 
73
For months
: Copy of letter from Horace Baltz to Frank Minyard, November 17, 2006.

 
74
True valor
: Copy of letter from Horace Baltz to Richard Deichmann, October 28, 2006.

 
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two widely publicized killings
: See, for example, Erin Moriarty, “Storm of Murder,” CBS,
48 Hours
, October 13, 2007 (updated August 14, 2008);
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18559_162-3348928.html
.

 
76
extreme dysfunction
: See, for example, Brown, Ethan, “New Orleans Murder Rate for Year Will Set Record: Prosecutions Are so Lax in Post-Flood City That Criminals Speak of ‘Misdemeanour Murder,’ Ethan Brown Reports,”
The Guardian
, November 6, 2007;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/nov/06/usa
; Webster, Richard A., “Getting Tough,”
City Business
, July 2, 2007, which contrasts the problems with the success of the new violent offenders unit; McCarthy, Brendan, “Draft Is Rare Portal into NOPD,”
Times-Picayune
, November 17, 2007;
http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/11/draft_is_rare_portal_into_nopd.html
; Court Watch NOLA quarterly reports from 2007 (
www.courtwatchnola.org
).

 
77
highest murder rate
: Using FBI 2006 Uniform Crime Report data of 162 cases of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter in New Orleans, and estimating a 2006 population average of 223,000.

 
78
On a foggy day […] take other people’s lives
: Brenda and Tabatha O’Bryant, interviews with the author (2007 and 2013).

 
79
he could not influence the script
: Interview with Richard Simmons (May 2, 2007) and letter to the author, “Re: Fact Check Reply,” August 14, 2009.

 
80
“It’s abhorrent”
: Jeter, Lynne, “Anna Pou Case Takes Unexpected Turns: Louisiana Medical Community Rallies to Support New Orleans Physician Accused of Killing Four Patients Post-Katrina,”
Louisiana Medical News
(March 2007).

 
81
The doctor on the show
: Turk, Craig, Janet Leahy, and David E. Kelley, “Angel of Death,”
Boston Legal
, season 3, episode 11, January 9, 2007; transcript retrieved from
boston-legal.org/script/bl03x11.pdf
, version updated February 4, 2007.

 
82
“Their acts were those of heroism”
: “American College of Surgeons Calls for Fair Investigation in New Orleans Case,”
USNewswire
, January 11, 2007. Interview with Dr. Eugene Myers (November 29, 2007), who said, “They copied my letter.”

 
83
“very, very extenuating circumstances”
: “Accusations of Mercy Killing in New Orleans,” CNN,
Newsnight with Aaron Brown
, October 12, 2005;
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0510/12/asb.02.html
.

 
84
“not consistent with the ethical standards”
: Caplan, Arthur L., PhD. “Report for New Orleans, Coroner’s Office, Dr. Frank Minyard, State of Louisiana,” January 26, 2007.

 
85
and passive euthanasia
: The “passive” category is sometimes split further into direct (having the intention of causing death) and indirect forms.

 
86
“for he was sore afraid,”
: The Bible, 1 Chronicles 10:4, King James Version.

 
87
“Stand over me and kill me!”
: The Bible, 2 Samuel 1:9, New International Version.

 
88
“I knew that after he had fallen”
: The Bible, 2 Samuel 1:10, New International Version.

 
89
“I will not give a lethal drug”
: See, for example, History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine, “Greek Medicine”;
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/greek/greek_oath.html
; and, for a discussion of modern controversy surrounding the Oath, Peter Tyson’s “The Hippocratic Oath Today,” PBS,
NOVA
, March 27, 2001;
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/hippocratic-oath-today.html
.

 
90
“For the first time in our tradition”
: Levine, Maurice.
Psychiatry & Ethics
(New York: George Braziller, 1972), p. 325.

 
91
“My duty is to preserve life”
: Cited by Herold, J. Christopher.
Bonaparte in Egypt
(Tuscon, AZ: Fireship Press, 2009; previous ed.: New York: Harper & Row, 1962), p. 332. See also: Harris, James C., “Art and Images in Psychiatry: Napoleon Bonaparte Visiting the Plague-Stricken at Jaffa,”
Archives of General Psychiatry
, vol. 63, issue 5 (May 2006).

 
92
The Turks found several alive
: Herold.
Bonaparte in Egypt
, pp. 331, 338.

 
93
case of physician involvement
: The Robert Semrau case from Canada concerns a (non-medical) soldier charged with homicide on the battlefield for an alleged mercy killing of a Taliban fighter. See, for example, Friscolanti, Michael, “A Soldier’s Choice,”
Maclean’s
, 123, 19 (May 24, 2010): 20–25; and Carlson, Kathryn Blaze, “ ‘An Act of So-Called Mercy’: Semrau Case Hinges on ‘Soldier’s Pact,’ ”
National Post
, July 7, 2010.

 
94
“a soft quiet death”
: Harris, John.
Lexicon Technicum
:
Or, An Universal English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences
, vol. 1, 4th ed. (London, 1725). The earliest reference mentioned in the Oxford English Dictionary, in the first listed sense of “a gentle and easy death,” is Hall, Bishop Joseph.
Balme of Gilead
:
Or, Comforts for the Distressed
(London, 1646): “But let me prescribe, and commend to thee, my sonne, this true spirituall meanes of thine happy Euthanasia.”

 
95
“To surrender to superior forces”
: See “Permissive Euthanasia” in
Boston Medical and Surgical Journal
, CX, 1 (January 3, 1884): 19–20 (available on Google Books). This fascinating editorial shows that long before the age of high-tech medicine, late nineteenth-century doctors grappled with some of the same dilemmas twenty-first-century doctors do, including whether to keep fighting to save someone who is dying. The writer wonders if euthanasia will one day become “a recognized branch of medical science” (playfully predicting this may happen by the fortieth century). An example is given of a patient with metastatic cancer: “For weeks the physician has combatted death […] all for what? To exhaust the strength and perhaps imperil the lives of the remainder of the household; to keep in their home a body which is repulsive to every sense and a mind which is no longer that of their friend, but which is overclouded if not maniacal; or, if the sufferer retains consciousness, to meet her bitter reproaches for prolonging her misery. Shall not a man under such circumstances give up the fight, take off the spur of the stimulant, and let exhausted nature sink to rest?” The writer of the editorial sees symbolism in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” (1850), a creepy tale about a dead man kept alive through entrancement as he rots away. See also Emanuel, Ezekiel J., “The History of Euthanasia Debates in the United States and Britain,”
Annals of Internal Medicine
, 121 (1994): 793–802.

 
96
These ideas […] extermination camps in Poland
: See, for example, Burleigh, Michael.
Death and Deliverance
: ‘
Euthanasia’ in Germany c. 1900–1945
(London: Pan Books, 2002; 1st ed., Cambridge University Press, 1994); Gesundheit, Benjamin, Avraham Steinberg, Shimon Glick, et al, “Euthanasia: An Overview and the Jewish Perspective,”
Cancer Investigation
, 24 (2006): 621–629. Interview with Dr. Shimon Glick (May 16, 2010).