"Some people had flashlights and lights that we use during surgery," Dr. Barry Cukor said. Other than that, "the entire hospital was black."
Cukor, a 1993 Tufts graduate, is in the first year of his gastroenterology fellowship and was working at the Tulane University Medical Center when Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans, La.
Along with the other doctors at the hospital, he spent six days working around the clock to keep the patients - and himself - alive.
The entire first floor of the hospital flooded on Tuesday, Aug. 30, and the building lost power. Backup generators lasted only 12 hours, after which the building plunged into darkness.
In addition to its other patients, the hospital was treating 60 people in critical condition who had transferred from the Superdome earlier that day.
"Once secondary generators failed, people using oxygen tanks had to be fed oxygen by doctors using manual pumps," Cukor said. Doctors had to work around the clock, pumping oxygen to keep patients alive until rescue airlifts began the next day.
Once the airlifts began, so did the shootings. "Guys were taking shots at helicopters from other buildings," Cukor said. "I could hear shots going off while loading the patients."
The hospital had its own police force armed with semi-automatic weapons. The police protected doctors and patients while they were loaded onto military evacuation helicopters and prevented people from breaking into the hospital.
Cukor said people tried to steal the hospital's medicine and use the hospital for shelter. "They were trying to shoot their way in and so the cops starting shooting back," he said.
"People were pissed because other people were getting taken out by helicopters, leaving them stranded," Cukor said. "They had no reason to shoot at us. When there is no order people do crazy things."
The first patients to be evacuated were those in the most critical condition, followed by the women and children, the rest of the patients and finally, the family members of the patients - many of whom were in the hospital when the hurricane hit.
Helicopters landed on the roof of the hospital parking garage, which was connected to the rest of the hospital by a third-floor bridge. Portable generators were placed on the roof to power lamps to direct the helicopters.
The airlifts continued until Friday, Sept. 2, when the last of the doctors and police left.
The last night before he was evacuated, Cukor slept on the cement floor of the parking garage. An oil refinery exploded about 50 miles west of the hospital. The doctors did not know the cause of the explosion, but Cukor said it "lit up the sky."
The doctors, Cukor said, woke many times during the last night. "We heard gun shots all around," he said. "We wouldn't look out over the cement barrier of the garage, though, because you never knew what was going to happen."
During the few days he was stuck in the hospital, Cukor said, the most difficult tasks were the simplest. "The worst part of the experience was the heat and the lack of running water," he said.
The temperature ranged from 100 to 110 degrees, and the plumbing system did not work.
"We couldn't take showers or use the toilets for several days. It felt incredibly disgusting," he said. "We were told not to flush because the sewer system had been totally compromised and would have run into the streets, making the already toxic flood waters even worse."
By the time the airlifts of the patients began, food supplies were scarce. Peanut butter and crackers were the only meals.
"Four or five patients died before airlifting - who knows what happened afterwards?" Cukor said. "Lots of patients died because they didn't get the attention they needed."
