INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- An Indiana doctor who helped rescue Hurricane Katrina victims said that in the first days of the disaster medical workers in New Orleans had just minutes to determine whether to treat patients or let them die so doctors could treat others.
Dr. Michael Olinger, the chief medical officer for FEMA's Incident Support Team, said doctors in makeshift treatment centers were making triage decisions they never thought would have to be made in the United States.
He said some patients who were unconscious or suffering from severe chronic problems that would take more than 10 minutes to treat were left untreated as the few doctors tried to handle thousands of patients.
Under normal circumstances, such patients would be revived and treated at a hospital, he said, but during the disaster they couldn't be treated when so many other people needed help.
''Some of these people took two or three days to die,'' Olinger said.
Olinger, who went to Louisiana the day before Hurricane Katrina struck and returned late Tuesday, said the emergency plan for New Orleans was unrealistic.
He said a plan to simply order everyone to evacuate is not good enough when many people are too sick or poor to find a way out on their own.
''This might be a wake-up call for cities,'' he said.
Olinger said the disaster was more widespread than the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City and the Oklahoma City bombing _ two disasters he worked on with FEMA.
''This is the worst humanitarian disaster that I've ever seen in this country,'' he said. ''New Orleans is not going to be New Orleans for a long time.''
