NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- An official at the New Orleans hospital where 45 bodies have been found say that staffers struggled to care for patients for six days as flood waters rose.
David Goodson, director of supplies at Memorial Medical Center, told the Los Angeles Times that the hospital became a place of refuge in the stricken city, with emergency workers dropping off people they had rescued from rooftops. Joanne Lalla, an oncology nurse, said that in addition to patients and staff many employees had brought family members for shelter.
"We were just in survival mode," she said. "We couldn't give out medication because we couldn't regulate their medications. We were like MASH units. All the patients were on little cots and mattresses on the garage floor."
Lalla said that many patients on life support probably died when the generator failed. Hospital workers filled the morgue and then the chapel with bodies.
