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Hurricane Sandy:
Reports from Chaplains in the Storm
The directors and staff of HealthCare Chaplaincy are enormously grateful to our chaplains and students who brought comfort and helped people find meaning at our partner health care institutions during this unprecedented catastrophe.
Here are reports we received from them in the aftermath of the hurricane.
Don’t Leave Me Behind: Evacuated Patient Describes Feelings of Helplessness
From the Rev. David Fleenor, NYU Langone Medical Center
On Monday night October 29, the hospital lost power as its generator and back-up generators were flooded. We had a massive evacuation of patients to other area hospitals accompanied by the nursing staff.
Thanks to our colleague Rabbi Nathan Goldberg at Mount Sinai Hospital, Chaplain Holly Gaudette and I were able to visit the transferred patients there, many of whom were frightened and disoriented from being moved out in the middle of the night in ambulances.
I heard two heroic and heartbreaking stories.
1. A Pediatric Intensive Care Unit nurse had to put two babies in the pockets of her scrubs in order to continue “bagging” them while scurrying down nine flights of stairs in the dark. The RN who told me this said all the nurses were creative and heroic during that harrowing time and are now, understandably, traumatized. (“Bagging” is a technique for keeping the babies well-aerated and oxygenated. At NYU Langone, “Every staff is trained to be able to bag a baby,”
explains Dr. Bret Rudy.)
2. While communicating at NYU Langone with a critically ill patient who was intubated (she was writing notes on a pad), I asked her about the evacuation experience. She said she was scared. With tears in her eyes, she wrote about fearing they would forget about her during the evacuation since it was dark, and she couldn't communicate audibly. An incredible experience of helplessness!
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Where am I? Fear and isolation among transferred patients
From Chaplain Osvaldo Tanon, St. John's Riverside Hospital, Yonkers, NY
We were fortunate that the storm did not cause much damage in this area north of New York City. Because of that, we were one of those hospitals to where patients were transferred. We received patients from as far away as Queens and Brooklyn.
In visiting with two of those patients today, I witnessed intense fear and isolation. These transfers happened very fast, and these patients weren't even able to communicate with their loved ones. They barely know where they are, so I found myself 'drawing' imaginary maps on the wall of the room, so that they could visualize how far away from home they really are.
I just met a family who finally found their loved one after an intense search and after making the impossible trip all the way from Pennsylvania and through various parts of New York City.
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One Big Dormitory
From Rabbi David M. Keehn, The New York Hospital Medical Center of Queens, Flushing, NY
I was in the hospital all night to make sure I’d be there the next morning. Trying to get home and back was just too uncertain. Checked in with all the units to make sure that all was good and things for the most part went well.
We had people sleeping all over the place.
Commentary: Rabbi Keehn had been on duty almost continually since Sunday, October 28, and the other chaplains had joined him as soon as they could. The hospital couldn’t discharge patients if they had no power in their homes, so the staff had to be on continuous shifts – most had not gone home since Monday. The strain on the staff was palpable, but the chaplaincy staff has been there supporting the hospital staff at all levels.
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9 Hours to Get to the Hospital
From the Rev. Florine Thompson, St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center
Wednesday, October 31
12:46 pm: “Been on this bus for 6 hours and still not out of Queens. Left home at 7am.”
1:41 pm: “Still on the bus. Pretty hungry by now.”
3:38 pm: “Almost there. I’m on the M57 which just took a detour because of the crane.” (Editor’s Note: A construction crane had toppled from the roof of a skyscraper during the storm and hung precariously over the street. The area was blocked off for several days until it could be properly secured.)
5:35 pm: “I’m rounding in the Emergency Department and then going to try to find my way home. I can’t imagine what time I’ll get there.”
Commentary: St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospitals, always busy places, were even more so as they began to absorb patients who might have gone to St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village which closed in 2010. Chaplain Director Florine Thompson and Chaplain Yusuf Hasan worked to support staff and patients Tuesday and Wednesday. Then Thursday, when car travel into Manhattan was restricted, the Rev. Thompson spent nine hours on a city bus to get from her home in Queens to St. Luke’s.
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The Hospital Staff Needs to be Cared For, Too
From The Reverend Jill M. Bowden, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
A note to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center chaplaincy staff:
Dear Ones,
Taking the time to write this to all, as we are so busy in so many different directions and our paths may not cross for some hours.
This morning I met with administrators to talk about how best to support hospital staff now and in the days ahead.
Please pay special attention one-on-one to all the staff on your floors. Be sure to attend all Multi-Disciplinary Rounds and Psychosocial Care Team meetings and keep your ears tuned to staff needs. If there are concerns that need to be followed up on and you will not be present, please report off to other chaplains so they can follow through.
Above all, remember that everyone in our hospital today is under stress and in distress in ways we cannot see. Listen deeply, as you always do.
With deep gratitude,
Jill
Commentary: Chaplain Jill Bowden and colleagues Sister Elaine Goodall, Imam Yusuf Hasan, and Rabbi Harry Rothstein, sprang into action Monday night and Tuesday (October 29 and 30) to visit the patients transferred from NYU Langone Medical Center, to help them feel comfortable in their new surroundings. The chaplaincy staff went floor-by-floor providing a listening ear, meditation, music and whatever might be appropriate to help the hospital staff, who are too busy to spend time in grief counseling sessions.
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Have power but feel powerless
St. Mary’s AIDS Center in West Harlem was the destination of the Rev. Daniel Shenk, sole chaplain at this 40-bed skilled nursing facility and day program The Rev. Shenk, who lives on Manhattan’s beleaguered Lower East Side, made the three hour trek by bus to be with the St. Mary’s residents and staff who were not able to contact relatives, and who, although they had power, felt isolated.
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After Caring for Patients, Going Home to Face the Dark and the Cold
From Sister Margaret Oettinger, Hospital for Special Surgery
Several of our staff members lost their homes in Breezy Point, Queens. We asked the members of the pastoral care advisory committee and others to try to come up with ways to support these and other staff members who had sustained severe damage to their homes.
We met with Hospital for Special Surgery president Lou Shapiro, who responded by setting up a $100,000 emergency relief fund to provide grants to those staff members.
In addition, our chaplaincy staff helped with patient food trays, getting needed blankets and other supplies for patients, and supporting the staff who faced long commutes often to darkened cold homes at night.
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A Marathon Walk to a “Battleground” Environment
Beth Israel Hospital is in Zone A – lower Manhattan, an area without power or running water. Chaplaincy services director the Rev. Paul Rickert supervises the rabbis, priests, Zen Buddhist students and HealthCare Chaplaincy’s Clinical Pastoral Education students there. He walked from his home in Astoria, Queens, all the way to Beth Israel Hospital on Wednesday, October 31. (That’s approximately ten miles!) The generators there were providing minimal lighting, but the patients were being cared for. The Rev. Rickert was back at his post Thursday managing the clergy and student staff and working as best one can in what can only be described as a “battleground” environment.
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Running Out of Food: Making Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches for the Patients.
From Chaplain Karen Jones, Winthrop Hospital, Garden City, Long Island
When the hospital lost power on Monday, the reality of how serious this storm’s impact was began to seep in.
The corridors went dark. The small café and larger cafeteria in the basement were quickly closed down. The friendly spaces where family members normally waited, like the lobby, or felt welcomed or found solace, like the Serenity Chapel, became cold and dark.
Little did I know that my staff and I would be making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the patients…and handing out snacks and bottled water to the staff…and getting portable oxygen tanks for patients in the ER…and being on standby in case we were needed in the command center.
Almost all the homes here lost power. No working traffic lights. The hospital is now running on generator power. As I walk through the lobby, it is crowded with families with no power at home, tapping into the hospital’s power to charge up cell phones and other electronic devices, as well as oxygen machines and nebulizers.
These reports originally ran in HealthCare Chaplaincy’s PlainViews®, the preeminent online professional journal for chaplains and other spiritual care providers.
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Hurricane Sandy: Helping Those in Need
If you wish to donate to help our neighbors in the metropolitan New York area who are
suffering as a result of Hurricane Sandy, please consider one of these resources:
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