Nursing in Hell: The Katrina Experience

Disasters cause great human suffering and inflict catastrophic destruction and death. As humans, nurses experience all the emotional, psychological, and physical responses common to all victims of disasters. However, because of their unique position in the health care system, they often are asked to contain these personal responses while providing care for others. Hurricane Katrina, a Category Four hurricane, made landfall on August 29, 2005, along the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and Louisiana. Health care workers and patients were stranded in hospitals, where they experienced extreme environmental conditions. Nurses heroically provided care to patients in these extreme conditions even when they feared death, watched patients die, had their lives threatened, and some eventually became patients. Because of their love and loyalty to others and the profession of nursing they went to work not knowing that the experience would be what they imagined nursing in hell would be like. This book includes firsthand accounts of the experiences of nine nurses providing care to patients during and immediately following Hurricane Katrina before evacuations were completed.