Jeff, I don’t know Anna Pou but I do know members of her family. And my family supported her Legal Defense fund. So I am admittedly biased.

I agree that the story is very sad.

What is also very sad that wasn’t mentioned in the NYT article is that most of these patients were completely abandoned by their families. While there is a mention of some intervening, most simply left them alone? I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t leave a loved one of mine alone in any hospital with a Cat 4 hurricane bearing down on the city. Many of these who did so were the same ones yelling for financial reparations after the fact.

What is also not mentioned is how CNN ran a virtual jihad against Dr. Pou and the nurses that assisted her. It was totally portrayed as black victims vs. white perpetrators. Google CNN and Anna Pou; you get 14,000+ hits, but the NYT makes it sound like an afternoon talk show host on WWL swung the debate. The way CNN treated her has forever varnished my view of that organization.

It’s very easy for someone who did not experience this horrid event under horrid conditions try to second guess the heros and heroines like her who didn’t leave their posts, even under great duress and at danger to themselves.

Dr. Pou spent millions of dollars defending herself, and will forever be haunted by being a good samaritan. I wonder if her life would be better today had she just simply walked away, like many of the families of the patients? But knowing what I know of her, she would have never done that and her actions speak loudly to that.