Gina Isbell’s Promise

Gina Isbell’s devotion to LifeCare patients moves from a reassuring promise to the painful recognition that rescue may not come in time.

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Choosing Her Team

Choosing Her Team A Nurse Director’s Decision Gina Isbell organized the transfer of LifeCare patients from Chalmette to Memorial and selected nurses she trusted to work the storm. She accepted the physical and professional demands of an unfamiliar site. Care as Commitment Her choice reflected a strong sense of responsibility toward patients whom other caregivers might find difficult to manage. The transfer was an effort to protect lives before the weather closed off options.

Miss Alice’s Daughter

Miss Alice’s Daughter A Reassuring Promise Isbell welcomed Alice Hutzler to a room on LifeCare’s seventh floor. She passed along a message to Hutzler’s daughter that she would take good care of her. A Promise Under Strain Hutzler was elderly and medically fragile but had a loving family who hoped she would return to nursing-home care. The promise became a measure of Isbell’s later guilt when Hutzler remained behind.

Manual Ventilation

Manual Ventilation Keeping Patients Alive After power failed, Isbell and other LifeCare staff manually ventilated patients while they waited for rescue. She worked in heat and uncertainty, trying to preserve the chance that patients would survive transfer. A Patient Dies John Russell died while Isbell was pumping air by hand. She stopped, comforted him, and later wept with the chaplain, feeling that she lacked the tools normally needed to give him a chance.

Patients on the Lobby Floor

Patients on the Lobby Floor Essential Care Continues Isbell helped meet basic needs for patients waiting in the second-floor lobby. She changed, cooled, and comforted people while evacuations proceeded around them. A Changed Understanding As patients deteriorated, Isbell felt the weight of what she could not do. She continued to hope for rescue and struggled to accept that some patients might be left behind.

The Lasting Burden

The Lasting Burden Grief and Anger Isbell left Memorial exhausted and later described nightmares, guilt, and anger at the delay in help. The deaths stayed with her long after the storm. Duty Remains She continued to believe that she and her colleagues had done their best under impossible conditions. She remained willing to serve in another storm, though the experience changed her permanently.

August 27, 2005

August 27, 2005, evening

August 31, 2005, early morning

September 1, 2005

After September 1, 2005