Not a Ham Sandwich

At my three o'clock lunch break I read this, linked here:

"NEW ORLEANS - A grand jury refused on Tuesday to indict a doctor accused of murdering four seriously ill hospital patients with drug injections during the desperate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, closing the books on the only mercy-killing case to emerge from the storm."

Let's not get crazy here and conclude from this incident that, if you are a healthcare worker who defers evacuation to instead stay behind in a disaster to somehow carry on caring for the sickest of the sick, you will not be sued. Or in this case, subject to possible criminal prosecution.

In a similar situation what would you; yeah, you, the lawyer in the back row who fled the city the moment you heard a storm was coming, what would you have done?

"Pou and two nurses were arrested last summer after Attorney General Charles Foti concluded they gave "lethal cocktails" to four patients at the flooded-out, sweltering Memorial Medical Center after the August 2005 storm."

Me? I would have done my best. As I assume Doctor Anna Pou and those nurses did.

I'm too tired to research this. I've come off a thirteen-hour day. Endometriosis, a bladder stone as big as your fist, an obstructed ileostomy, and other joyful noises sang praises to my long workday. But I have to ask, when Dr. Pou was stuck in her hospital with those patients and nurses, where exactly was Attorney General Charles Foti?

In New Orleans, I hope. Otherwise he's just coming off like a total ass.

"Foti said Tuesday that the grand jury had erred.

He released reports from four medical experts who determined the deaths were homicides."

Four medical experts. Were they also in New Orleans in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, abandoned by all but a handful of coworkers, struggling together to serve as only they knew how?

I hope so. Otherwise they would appear to be craven meddlers, professional assassins, people who'd testify to anything for a nickel.