Heroes of the Storm, Part Two
Saving the babies
Outside Memorial Hermann ER, the medical staff moves a patient on a gurney so that an Army helicopter can transfer him to an outlying hospital.
HOUSTON—(Jun. 21, 2001)—Jose Garcia, M.D., had already been on call for 10 hours, taking care of Memorial Hermann Hospital's tiniest patients, when the lights went out.
Suddenly, Garcia, an associate professor of pediatrics at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, pediatric residents and nursing staff had to hand ventilate babies that required breathing assistance.
A routine shift on the seventh floor was now anything but, and everyone was scurrying to keep nearly 80 infants breathing, warm and safe.
"With no power, the incubators and infant warmers weren't working," Garcia said. "We took little baby T-shirts and put them on the babies to keep them warm. We gave them blankets - anything we could to keep them warm."
In the darkness, Garcia and the other health-care professionals used flashlights and pen lights to check on each patient during the early morning hours of June 9 after a flash flood crippled normal operations throughout much of the Texas Medical Center.
He is one of hundreds of physicians, nurses, students and volunteers who took heroic actions to care for patients during the disaster. It was their quick-thinking, positive attitudes and willingness to do whatever it took that made it possible to rapidly and safely evacuate more than 500 patients.
For some reason, two computers in each seventh-floor pod were unaffected by the power outage. During the first hour, their white-lighted screens helped illuminate the patient beds. At about 4 a.m., Garcia, residents and nurses began using the outlets behind each computer to power ventilators and monitors.
"We scrounged every surge protector on the seventh floor and hooked them up to the few outlets that still had power," Garcia said. "We hooked up all the ventilators and monitors, and everything was working. At about 6:15 a.m., there was a second power outage. Every thing just blew. Everything was gone. We went back to hand ventilating the babies."
At about the same time, Dr. Craig Fischer, the trauma surgeon on call, realized the magnitude of the crisis.
At about 3 a.m. June 9, activity in the hospital had started to quiet down, and Fischer seized the opportunity to take a quick nap. It wasn't long before his pager went off, and a resident told him the lights were out.
"I went down to the emergency room and saw someone with a flashlight who needed to be admitted. She had gallstone pancreatitis, and she was miserable," Fischer said. "At the same time, someone coded upstairs, and we ran up to assist with that."
All along, Fischer said, he kept thinking the power would come back on. At about 6 a.m., as he made his way down the stalled escalator and saw a piano under water, he understood it wasn't a temporary setback. It was a state of emergency.
"At about 7 a.m., we realized that the pharmacy was flooded," Fischer said. "We had the National Guard bring in antibiotics, IV fluids and other basic medications."
Fischer was among key people who set up a command center and came up with a plan for finding patient beds at other hospitals, arranging for transports, evacuating the sickest patients and discharging those who were well enough to return home.
"We set up sort of a battle triage area in front of the emergency room in the parking lot," Fischer said. " There were gurneys, ambulances and choppers. When Dr. (Christine) Cocanour would say, `Okay, we've got a bed at Southwest,' a runner would run to the ICU and ask the charge nurse 'who's next?' They would come down and tell us he's ready for transfer. We'd get volunteers, some who were just walking down the street, and we would run upstairs with flashlights and get the patients."
Because of the nationwide nursing shortage, the assisting hospitals couldn't take patients unless a nurse accompanied them, Fischer said. So nurses would jump into the ambulances and helicopters and head to neighboring and distant hospitals, never giving a thought to how they would get back.
For hours, the organized frenzy continued.
On the neonatal intensive care unit on the seventh floor, staff continued to hand ventilate babies until they could take them down dark stairwells and move them to the 22 hospitals that "opened their arms and welcomed our babies," Garcia said.
Evacuating Memorial Hermann Hospital, volunteers and UT-Houston medical staff ease a patient down the escalator.
ust before daybreak June 9, Dr. John Sparks, chairman of UT-Houston's pediatric department, heard someone moaning as he made his way through one of the hospital entrances.
Dr. (Michael) Fant had fallen and sprained his ankle trying to get to the patients," Garcia said. "After he went to Ben Taub and was put on crutches, he walked up seven flights of stairs with his crutches to help out. He was trying to make sure all the babies were taken care of."
Fischer said physicians, nurses and volunteers were enthusiastic and rolled up their sleeves to tackle the situation. Drs. Fred Moore, Richard Andrassy, Anthony Estrera, Fernando Moya, Kevin Lally, Susan Denson, Billy Gill, Bradley Rue, Fred Perkins and Joshua Vacik and nurse Kitty Kelly were just a few who worked around the clock.
"We converted to old-fashioned medicine, and it worked," he said. "Within six hours, every critical patient was out of the hospital."
When Jason Carter, a second-year UT-Houston medical student, saw the flood damage, he didn't hesitate to help.
"When I woke up that morning, all my family was calling me asking me if I was OK," Carter said. "When I had gone to sleep, I knew it was starting to flood, but I had no idea how bad it was. I looked out my door and could see how high the water level had been. People's car doors were open and they were trying to dry out their cars. I turned on the TV and saw that the medical center had been hit pretty hard. I got in my truck and drove down there."
Carter immediately noticed that Taco Bell, his regular lunchtime spot at the hospital, was under water. And it was hot—but he quickly joined the hard-pressed hospital staff.
"I asked if there was anything I could do, and they said, `Yes, we need you to move patients,'" Carter said.
For at least four hours, he went up and down stairs, putting patients on backboards, strapping them down and carefully maneuvering them through stairwells.
"There was some drama. On the fifth floor, there was an elderly fellow on life support and his son was there. We explained that we were going to move him, and his son helped us carry him down on a board. It was like out of a movie. When you stepped outside, there were all these ambulances. When we got out to the parking lot, I looked over and there was another patient getting CPR.
"We moved a bunch of the women from the maternity area of the hospital," Carter said. "Instead of being carried, one of the women who had just had a C-section the night before wanted to walk down the stairs. She walked down 12 flights of stairs while one of us carried her newborn baby and others held on to her."
Carter said the experience solidified his choice to become a doctor. "It was great. I was actually getting to help people who were in need of it," he said. "You could sense that they appreciated what you were doing, and it was very gratifying."
By Sunday, all the patients had been evacuated, and the doctors and nurses who had worked 24 to 36 hours were finally ready to take a break.
Fischer discovered that his car was flooded. Garcia lost his car to the high waters, too. At the time, it didn't much matter, though. They had cared for and safely evacuated more than 500 patients. Losing a car in the process didn't seem all that important.
"The Memorial Hermann and UT-Houston staff acted with great courage and selflessness and performed with such distinction during this crisis that their families would be proud of them," Garcia said.
— Meredith Raine