Inspire, Winter 2005

26 Winter 2005 Among those who were in Katrina’s path was Leah Nielson ’04. As an obstetrical nurse, Leah was one of the courageous medical staff members at the medical center at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi, who stayed behind to weather the storm. The following is her eyewitness account. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that there were no waiting patients in the delivery or post-partum units when I arrived at work on Sunday, August 28. However, downstairs in the Women’s Health Clinic there were 26 pregnant women with their families who had decided to shelter at the hospital rather than evacuate. Soon “Jill” (name changed for privacy) started having contractions. Her labor continued throughout the night. On Monday morning the electricity went out and we switched to generator power. I spent the morning glancing out the windows as the rain became a blinding wave against the glass. I could make out enormous swaying trees as the wind grew stronger. I walked between the north and south facing windows to compare the progress. Soon the north side street was flooded and debris began to appear. The water seemed to sneak up and lash out before we had really noticed. Finally the generators failed and we were in complete darkness. Shortly afterwards, we got word that the pregnant women were moving up to our floor because of flooding downstairs. We raced to retrieve patient records and put electrical equipment on top of desks. We received word that some of the 150 mph hurricane windproof windows on the fifth floor were cracking and one had blown in. I warned the women to bed down on the floor away from the windows. Then a window cracked, and we announced that everyone needed to sit in the hallway for a few hours until the worst of the wind had subsided. Around 65 people, plus staff and their families, filled the black A Day in the Life of a Hurricane Survivor b y L e a h N i e l s o n ’ 0 4 hallway with darkness broken only by a few dim flashlights and the split-second flash of the fire alarm lights. No one was sure why they had come on, but their blinding pulses were like a painful strobe light at a disco. I sympathized with the people complaining of headaches as I was getting one, too, while the lights pounded our heads for two hours. It was miserable. When it stopped we were actually grateful for the darkness. I was just getting adjusted to this picture and hunkered down to ride out what was becoming the worst of the hurricane when we were thrown into a flurry of activity after the doctors announced that Jill was now in active labor. She had a history that did not give her a favorable outcome for vaginal birth so it was going to have to be a Cesarean section. I overheard the decision-making process between the doctors as they weighed all the benefits and risks of all options, and I could sense the impossible weight doctors carry of being the ones to make the final decisions. I felt like throwing up. Once the doctors arrived at their decision, I was chosen to be Jill’s nurse. There were a number of complications to hurdle as we prepared for a hurricane C-section. A window in the labor and delivery operating room had cracked a few hours earlier, Leah and her father in front of the Biloxi-Ocean Springs bridge which connects the peninsula to the mainland