05-SEP-A-6
MOBILIZATION OF THE EMERGENCY RESPONSE TEAM THROUGH MARTINS STATE AIRPORT BY MILITARY AIRLIFT TO TWO-WEEKS’ VOLUNTEER MEDICAL SERVICE IN THE LOUISIANA GULF COAST
September 5, 2005
My Labor Day could not have been more eventful, and started out very early with what I now realize in retrospect was a near death experience. I survived it, while trying to get the last minute details ready for my trip—but the largest appliance in my house did not. I am heading toward the site of a national disaster, but I have left my beautifully refurbished home behind me as an unreclaimed disaster zone. I am going to be helping neighbors I don not know, but I am going to be dependent on a number of neighbors I know to bail me out of deep troubles, which might have been deeper still and prevented my every getting off the ground to where I now am—strapped into the nylon web primitive sling seating of a C-130 Maryland Air Guard Hercules ahead of large pallets on which the Load Master has thrown my duffel bag packed in anticipation of this trip.
Oh, and by the way: “It is Major Glenn W. Geelhoed to you now,” sworn in and fully commissioned enroute, with a Hepatitis A inoculation in one arm and a tetanus shot in the other to signal my willingness to take in what I have just dished out.
IF YOU THINK THAT THE LAST OF THE POSSIBLE DISASTERS
AT DERWOOD COULD HAVE ALREADY HAPPENED—
CHECK AGAIN AT 2:00 AM—
LEAVING MY BEAUTIFIED HOME AS A SISASTER ZONE
I went to bed around midnight, but then thought of a couple more details I could finish at 1:30 AM. I packed a couple more items from my Eritrean kit into the duffel bag, and then went around securing a few more details in the house. I walked by the Viking refrigerator freezer, pulled out in the middle of the Mexican tile floor of the new kitchen in its precarious position having been released from the wall bolts that held it in the alcove that Dale Kramer had released on Wednesday in hoping that the industrial hygienist from Environmental Solutions Inc. could come soon and the C & C Cleanup could come immediately mop it up and we could be done with the cleanup before the new upright freezer and refrigerator/freezer purchased on Friday night could be installed in the basement to replace the appliances which were trashed by Tuesday morning, with the lock box access allowing them to deliver. I thought I would put the lunch meat, ham and other items I had purchased but not yet opened from the refrigerator into the freezer where I had already stored the chicken, steaks and other perishables when I realized I might be gone for a while. I took out the items to be frozen and gently tugged the freezer door open. Suddenly I realized something was wrong, but it took me a moment to realize that the whole room was not reeling around me, but that the huge half ton top of the line Viking unit was toppling over on me. I scrambled to hold on to push it back up, and it caught on its front rubber roller wheels and slid back now with the refrigerator door swinging open. This item I thought was a disaster, but it may have saved my life, even if it destroyed the brand new appliance. A cascade of eggs beer cans and the Britta filtered water jug came bouncing out and smashed all around me, with a gallon of milk and orange juice following and then the plastic trays and drawers and compartment dividers, then all the contents of the ice maker dumped over my feet which had one slipper on and one which was shucked off. The only foot with traction was now the bare foot, and I pushed so hard as to keep the whole appliance on a precarious angle until my leg gave out, and it tumbled down on me-glancing off the newly dry walled and painted wall, gouging out a cloud of plaster dust and crashing to the tile on the open refrigerator door. I could not get out if the unit had landed flat on me, but the door held long enough for me to get out, before the large refrigerator door broke off. The whole unit then crashed and I stood there marveling at the complete shambles in the brand new kitchen—now a disaster zone requiring new appliances and carpentry and painting and who knows what else to the Mexican tile beneath. I put on running shoes for traction and tried to lift, realizing only then the bruises across both knees and shoulders. I could neither open the freezer or refrigerator to empty it, nor close the doors which were jammed partly open, nor could I reconnect the power cord which had snapped. The copper coiled tube to the ice maker was stretched taut, and I could not turn off the water inflow into the ice maker which was already leading down through the kitchen floor into the basement.
I then tried to lift it and could not budge, but heard the cracking of glass shards and plastic components rending. I then realized that this was all hardware and not me that was broken. What more can happen to keep me from my appointed mission which should start up in four more hours to a military airfield I had never heard of nor which I could not envision on the directions given? If ever there were a confluence of many events to discourage the taking on a mission of helping others when I was at that moment completely helpless, here it was.
I left the mess, picked up the phone and called the insurance agents’ office number and left a message that the Derwood disaster has now gone form very bad to much worse, but that I was gong to proceed to do what I had to do. Diane would be coming for me in four hours, so I called to see if I could move that up to two hours, and then planned to call my neighbors Ed and Debbie Lubbers to see if we could rescue anything from the mess before I have a second episode of high grade meat rotting in my refurbished home during my absence. I hesitatingly walked down the drive at dawn. There were two new big branches down in the woods, in addition to the tree for which I could not start the chain saw. I had called all the family to leave phone messages that I was deployed, and two of my ELDP colleagues as well to tell of my impending absence without even the ability to email in my electronic attachments of the work I had done on the weekend. When I walked out to the neighborhood, there was not one light on, nor any evidence of anyone at home. Now, I called Ed Lubbers waking them both on the only day they could sleep in—Labor Day, a holiday. They said they would be up in ten minutes.
Diane arrived and noted the disastrous mess. Ed came to me with Debbie and said “God may be trying to tell you something about whether he wants you to go.” We propped the Viking back up as a cascade of broken shards rained out, and they took home the freezer contents as the rest was disposed. The Viking is now officially heavy trash, even as C & C Cleaning had reported earlier that they had doubts about its salvagability because of the smell within the rubber gaskets. I had tried everything to salvage it, after several cleanings, and now it has taken out the woodwork and the drywall and paint in its demise—and nearly me as well. After Ed and Debbie had considered the mess, Ed became quite emotional and asked for a circle of prayer, stating the he was sure the Devil was doing what he could to interfere with what he considered my God-given work, and told me to go now as quickly as I could in the direction of what I had been told was Andrews Air Force Base, and do what I could to help those poor and desperate people and tip the balance of the Lord’s work against the deviltry he had just witnessed. Debbie said, ”When things start to go south, they really take on a life of their own—and they have wiped out the prettiest and best of your remodeling projects.”
I drove out with my kit packed and we made it to the entrance of Andrews Air Force Base, where no one had heard of Martin State Air Base. They gave me all kinds of the third degree despite the paperwork I showed them about my mobilization for deployment. Diane got the atlas form the trunk and found the town of Essex on the map with an unmarked air base near it, but it was through the Fort McNair Harbor Tunnel past Baltimore. I drove at high speed to get there, and we were misdirected twice from one General Aviation Gate to another, finally off loading to where I was to get a bus to go back to the earlier gates guarded by the MD National Guard.
AND, NOW, FULL DEPLOYMENT:
COMMIOSNED AND OFFICER IN THE MARYLAND DEFENSE FORCES AND MUSTERED OUT,
PERSOANLY THANKED BY MARYLAND GOVERNOR EHRLICH,
AND IN A TELEVISED BOARDING OF THIS C-130 HERCULES,
I AM ENORUTE SOUTH FROM MY DAMGED HOME
TO HELP PEOPLE WHO ARE NOW HOMELESS
The hurry/wait is not yet over. I waited at the drop spot until I was bussed over, hearing the rumors that we were 89 volunteers in all, all sacrificing two weeks with some as little as twelve hours notice, mostly nurses, EMT’s, PA’s a few non-boarded physicians, and several board certified physicians, of which I turn out to be the only “triple-header” for which they deputized me as Pod Leader. I then learned we would be taking off for West Jefferson Hospital in Jefferson Parish Louisiana on the West Bank of the Mississippi, where the televised coverage of the chief of staff last night—they told me—as he broke into tears when he heard that a Maryland contingent was coming down to take over after none of their hospital staff had gone home in the week since the storm. We will be in VERY austere conditions, with no running water, and only this morning erratic electricity form a generator, but not to be used for cellphone charging or frivolous purposes, and we would be housed in a gymnasium floor, remembering that there is no running water facility. Does this sound to me like Sudan? I can handle this! I may be the only one too “the manor born!”
To my surprise, I heard my named called as I got a Band-Aid on each upper arm. I arrived into the mess hall processing center and found myself urging, and then getting a hepatitis A inoculation in my left arm and a tetanus shot in my right—next to the bruises form a falling refrigerator blow rather recently. “Dr. Geelhoed!” I turned and saw Dr. Jerry O’Connor in full BDU fatigues of the MD National Guard, introducing me to the General as his former professor when he was a GWUMC resident. Next a fellow named Caprini came forward to say he was a resident who rotated behind me in the GWU system, and had learned a lot form me—though I did not remember him. Then came a fellow who was two years behind me in the NIH Surgery Branch of the NCI, and whom I recognized but did not know his name. An ID internist in Rockville named Michael Suari identified himself as someone who had heard my tropical medicine lectures and wanted to defer for some consultation. I went form knowing non one here to having a number of people come to me and saying they had appreciated a prior life time of mine, almost as far back as I would have considered high school—but was in a very active period of the 1870’s when I had to pull names form a deep recall. So, there are two residents and one trailing colleague of mine among the group who were asked to stand and take the oath commissioning us as board-certified specialists and fresh Majors in the Maryland Defense Forces, with orders to be issued form the President and Governor and a General named Shanohan who came to me with Jerry O’Connor and asked me for help in the shared command. I was bewildered at what we would be doing at first, and now realize, I will have a hand in determining what it is that we will be doing. We are commissioned because of the risk of liability and all other resources which we may find it necessary to command so that the full resources of the US as well as the State of MD support command decisions with the liability risk picked up by Emergency Act—I am also covered by a declaration of the Governor of Louisiana honoring my other licenses until September 26 for the purposes of the is medical relief mission and that I acknowledge that I will be in a Maryland unit that is most likely to be out of communication but will be in direct line of authority and issue and obey orders. There is a lot to be done.
We got multiple briefings and multiple heartfelt thanks form several sources, concluding with the Governor of the State of Maryland Ehrlich, a congressman at the time of the 9/11 attack, saying we had learned a lot form that chaotic experience, and this was one in which we would build on the at experience, and our job was first to save those lives, then improve our responses for future problems—even though it is unlikely that we will see one coming along of this magnitude. He came around for hand shakes and a few photo ops, and we are also taking the Fox News Baltimore channel crew with us who will be following much of what is going on down there. We were then segmented into “pods” of people for accountability, including the retired surgeon who had been one of my residents but who is now the deputy director of public health in Prince George’s County in my pod of ten, mostly nurses, from every county in Maryland. We were rounded up in tow plane loads, and with TV cameras rolling I jumped form the bus with my carryon bag and this laptop—which may not be getting any recharge any time soon—and gave them the thumb’s up and “V” sign of good cheer, rather like the start of any marathon.
As I approached the C-130, a reception line had formed and each general and State Official shook my hand to thank me on camera, and then Governor Ehrlich, who actually pulled me aside. I told him I was from Derwood in Montgomery County, and thanked him for being there and for signing whatever needed clearing to make this mission possible. He thanked me by name (my old Harvard Peter Bent Brigham name tag was the only one I could find last night pinned to my safari shirt—and he already knew I had come in from Africa, and mentioned that as well. I turned to board the steps into this austere and very noisy Hercules, as a whole lie of guardsmen saluted me. I know that we may look better headed out than we will as a ragtag tired army coming back, but I would a whole lot rather have DONE something than get congratulated for just photo ops –and maybe that less photogenic return whenever will be more sincere appreciation of the teammates and whatever patients we leave behind us that can benefit from our presence.
So, for present purposes only “I’m in the Army now!” And this umbrella has a very local stamp to it—of a neighboring state three and a half very noisy hours removed from a hurting population in Louisiana, as I leave behind a battered and wounded home of my own in Montgomery County Maryland. But, it is a reparable home that I leave behind with a lot of friends deputized to look after it, as I go to look after some neighbors I have not yet met who need it a lot more. At least I escaped an early morning pinning down by the destructive pieces of my own house—something few of the people I will be seeing will also be able to say, or I would not be seeing them as “inpatients.” And those I do have to fix are probably not going to be able to go back to that home that was devastated around and with them. I am almost unscathed and am still able to climb into this “austere” transport device to drone me forward into the Chase Navy Base adjacent to MSY “Louis Armstrong International Airport” itself having undergone a conversion. “A Concourse” is Administrative, “B’ and C” concourses are hospital words with eight deaths a day in the airport and a number of patients still arriving with black tags for expectant therapy, and “D Concourse” is the Morgue. It is filled up and there are refrigerated trucks coming down to help empty the D Concourse. I will do my part to keep from refilling it.
Here comes the Unknown Dead Ahead—but I have a rather strong hunch it will look a whole lot more like the Sudan for me than it will “General Hospital” for my fellow passengers on this anything but luxury flight (“What? No Movie?”) which we have all gladly paid to get on to do what we can toward what needs to be done.