The Katrina Diaries: First Hand Accounts from Medics and Miracle Workers

Below is the Introduction to my eBook (PDF version).

All proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to the National Association of EMTs (NAEMT) Foundation. The mission of the non-profit NAEMT Foundation is to support a better future for EMS through funding EMS education and research.

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Introduction

There have been dozens of books written about Katrina, the Category 5 hurricane that leveled long stretches of the Gulf Coast from Florida to Texas and decimated the city of New Orleans in August 2005. The story has been told countless times by survivors, politicians and journalists who were there on the front lines, witnessing the devastation as it happened. Their stories express the unimaginable horror of seeing the bodies of dead men, women, children and animals floating in the putrid floodwaters. They tell of personal loss, grief and devastation. They shine a harsh light on poverty and politics. It has been five years since Katrina, and most of us have heard it all.

But this story is different.

We are the paramedics, EMTs, doctors, nurses, administrators, support staff and volunteers who were on the scene before, during and after Katrina. We were present from the pre-storm evacuations, during the storm, and throughout the surreal and unexpectedly tragic aftermath. The accounts you will read in these pages are told first-hand by healers…the people who treated the wounds of the traumatized and injured, held the sick and dying in their arms, and did their best to create a haven of safety in the midst of terror and chaos.

Katrina gave us an extraordinary new perspective on the work we do. We are accustomed to school bus accidents, murders, heart attacks, suicide attempts and human suffering of all kinds. We are used to pulling mangled bodies out of multi-vehicle car crashes, but we never imagined that Katrina would require us leave our ambulances and offices and face the unknown to care for a sea of suffering New Orleanians. We also could not anticipate that some of the people we were trying to help would end up shooting at us, or that we would run short of supplies, medicine and equipment.

In the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) business, Katrina is what we call a “mass casualty incident.” But we — along with most everyone else in the southern states — never expected it to elevate to such a desperately critical level. Medics compared it to being in a combat zone, and many of the military medics who worked alongside us said that they’d never seen anything like it.

From 1998 to September 2010, I served as the medical director of Acadian Ambulance Service, Inc. (“Acadian”).1 Acadian is based in Lafayette, LA 135 miles west of New Orleans. Most of us rode out the hurricane in our own homes. After the storm passed, we walked outside to find blue skies and gentle winds blowing, just like any other summer day in Louisiana, and it seemed that the area had emerged relatively unscathed. But that was before we knew that the levees had broken and the low-lying areas of New Orleans were beginning to flood. There was no electricity or phone service, so news of the flooding didn’t reach us until the next morning.

As I packed to accompany our paramedics into New Orleans to begin our medical relief operations, I threw my video camera into my duffle bag with the intention of videotaping some of the work we’d be doing. I didn’t realize at the time that I would be way too busy to carry a camera around. In fact I didn’t even open the bag until three or four days later. I was disappointed that I had not been able to document something that most people never see… the medics’ point of view.

Then I got an even better idea. I sent one of my employees in Lafayette to purchase ten digital voice recorders from a local electronics store. I handed one of these recorders to each of my key staff members with these simple instructions: record your experiences and impressions. They in turn passed the recorders on to others so that the first hand accounts would be captured.

The stories in this book are transcriptions of those recordings. I recognized that this was a disaster like no other, and I wanted to make sure the world knew how it looked through the eyes of the emergency medical personnel on the scene. Some of the people you’ll meet in these pages have worked in EMS for decades. Some lost their homes, their possessions, and their pets in the storm. Most worked 20 or 30 hours non-stop in the Superdome, on the freeway underpass that became a makeshift triage2 center, in helicopters, in ambulances, in boats and in our offices, doing whatever needed to be done to meet the needs of an entire city of refugees.

The intent of the book is to document both the deep compassion and the frustration of Acadian’s responders. The stories told by these medics and staff will shock you and touch your heart with their expressions of brotherly love, human kindness and human vulnerability. Although I am extremely proud of my Acadian colleagues, there were countless others who helped with equal dedication. Some of those include the Coast Guard, the National Guard, FEMA, hospitals, EMS, medical professionals, civilian helicopter companies, churches, civic organizations, local businesses and local fire & police departments. Then there were the friends, neighbors and average folks who helped by cooking meals for our medics, bringing us clean clothes, offering their boats, tools and manpower and assisting us in a hundred different ways.

The stories being published herein have not been confirmed or endorsed by Acadian as to their accuracy or content. Acadian takes great pride in the work and dedication of its employees, not only in times of disaster but every day that they commit themselves to a mission of service. In looking back on the days and weeks and months following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, there was an overwhelming degree of humanity, persistence, skill, integrity and endurance that was displayed in the field and at home. The faces of those whose lives were touched and who touched every member of the Acadian family in the wake of those storms will never be forgotten.

We walked with angels during that time. We were reminded that material things can be washed away, but that the human spirit is eternal.

Ross Judice, MD

Tagged as: EMT, Hurricane Katrina, Medics, Paramedic