The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine

911

Paul Rousseau, M.D.
PalliativeDoctor@aol.com

The rain was like a million little needles probing my skin, the wind apocalyptic. I knew it was a Category 5, but I was not prepared for such fury as I left home. As I shut the car door and turned on the radio, I was relieved to find the storm had been downgraded to a Category 3—less damage, or so I naively thought. But I knew that even a Category 3 would test the strength and endurance of New Orleans’s levees, the tenuous man-made walls holding back the anger of the swirling gulf.

As I pulled from the driveway, my car shuddered under the force of the wind, my wipers barely clearing the rain from the windshield. The streets were flooded, trees were bent, and debris swirled in the air. I suddenly realized the rage of a Category 3, and slowed the pace of my car. Although a mere 10 miles from work, it took me 90 minutes to arrive. Upon entering the building, the lights on the telephones were blinking like red sirens—this was going to be a long day.

I sat in my seat, poured some coffee, and the first call arrived—“911, how may I help you?” A frantic woman with 12 children was trapped in an attic, oily, dirty, and contaminated water now at neck level. The levees had broken, flooding the lower part of the city. The Category 3 had made landfall, destroying homes, power lines, and lives.

Her voice begged for help, her panic unsettling. I found my heart pounding, sweat collecting on my brow. She wanted the police and fire department to rescue her, and she wanted them now, but they were confined to their quarters until the eye of the storm passed. She had tried breaking through the roof, but it was unwavering. I was desperate for suggestions, so I told her to try again. In my earpiece, I could hear her frantic efforts amid the sloshing of the water and the pelting of the rain, but again, the futile pounding was rebuffed by the unyielding lid to her impending coffin. Then she rested, a time that seemed endless; my mind wandered, had she succumbed to the water? But then she spoke, and as she spoke, her voice gurgled as she choked on water—in the background, I could hear the screaming and crying of the children—pure pandemonium as death circled and waited.

I tried to calm and reassure her, repeatedly telling her to “hang on” and that things would be fine, even though I knew they wouldn’t—but my fraudulent speech was hollow, and she was mindful of my fallacious assurance after 25 minutes of redundant dialogue. She became fearful and pleaded mercifully when her cell phone beeped, indicating a dying battery. In a brief moment of poetic imagery, I ashamedly thought that she and those poor children were also dying. And they were. But what could I do? No one was attempting to traverse the streets in a Category 3…no one. So I stayed on the phone with her, trying to allay her fears, but her conversation shifted to the children in vain attempts to calm and reassure them, their cries filling my psyche: “Mommy, I want my mommy.”

Then suddenly, there was static, and finally, silence.

She and the children were gone, alone in the attic, the oily, dirty, and contaminated water lapping at their lives.

Published: March 28, 2007