Spring Break
Saving lives after Hurricane Katrina
Issue date: 4/24/08
When Juliette Saussy learned that Hurricane Katrina would hit New Orleans, she began to pray.
It was not standard procedure for the New Orleans medical director, but the situation was anything but typical.
Like when Saussy had to tell a mother to put her child in a shoebox so she could find the body later.
Or making the tough decision to hang up on a woman after spending 20 minutes on the phone trying to help fix her oxygen tank.
"That haunts me to this day," Saussy said during a speech at Hopkins on Thursday.
At the start of her speech Monday night, Saussy joked that she went into public service for the uniform.
On a more serious note, she added, "When you think about public service, you think, 'what have I done with my life and what have I given back?'"
Since 1984, Saussy has been a member of the city's Emergency Medical Service (EMS).
She went on to become the Chief Medical Officer of Homeland Security and Public Safety in New Orleans, a position she had held for only six months before Katrina struck.
As she began to tell her story, Saussy wanted to make it clear that, "my organization is about one hundred people. Here were some issues with police not showing up. All of my guys showed up."
At 11:00 on the night Katrina hit, her organization of EMTs could no longer respond to 911 calls because ambulances were flooded and hospitals could no longer take patients.
"We shut the system down," she said.
Even though they could not send help, Saussy's group of EMTs continued to answer police dispatch calls through the night. Eventually they lost all communication as telephone and radio lines were submerged in the flooding.
"The only method of communication was swimming or walking. We did a lot of walking," Saussy joked.
With this mass chaos, Saussy described seeing a societal breakdown where "I can take anything I wanted, kill anyone I wanted, and there are no rules."
It was not standard procedure for the New Orleans medical director, but the situation was anything but typical.
Like when Saussy had to tell a mother to put her child in a shoebox so she could find the body later.
Or making the tough decision to hang up on a woman after spending 20 minutes on the phone trying to help fix her oxygen tank.
"That haunts me to this day," Saussy said during a speech at Hopkins on Thursday.
At the start of her speech Monday night, Saussy joked that she went into public service for the uniform.
On a more serious note, she added, "When you think about public service, you think, 'what have I done with my life and what have I given back?'"
Since 1984, Saussy has been a member of the city's Emergency Medical Service (EMS).
She went on to become the Chief Medical Officer of Homeland Security and Public Safety in New Orleans, a position she had held for only six months before Katrina struck.
As she began to tell her story, Saussy wanted to make it clear that, "my organization is about one hundred people. Here were some issues with police not showing up. All of my guys showed up."
At 11:00 on the night Katrina hit, her organization of EMTs could no longer respond to 911 calls because ambulances were flooded and hospitals could no longer take patients.
"We shut the system down," she said.
Even though they could not send help, Saussy's group of EMTs continued to answer police dispatch calls through the night. Eventually they lost all communication as telephone and radio lines were submerged in the flooding.
"The only method of communication was swimming or walking. We did a lot of walking," Saussy joked.
With this mass chaos, Saussy described seeing a societal breakdown where "I can take anything I wanted, kill anyone I wanted, and there are no rules."
Be the first to comment on this story