Sumith Prasad
Apple TV+’s medical drama ‘Five Days at Memorial’ centers around the discovery of 45 dead bodies in the Memorial Medical Center building in New Orleans, Louisiana, which also accommodates another hospital named LifeCare Hospitals. As the series progresses, the viewers are introduced to the people who are stuck in the two hospitals during Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flood, including Emmett Everett, a LifeCare patient.
Diane Robichaux, one of the administrators of LifeCare, checks on Emmett frequently. As the first three episodes of the show open a window to the patient’s life, the viewers must be eager to know whether he is based on a real patient and whether he is one of the people whose dead bodies get discovered days after the hurricane. Let us provide the answer!
Emmett Everett Was an Actual Patient
Yes, Emmett Everett is based on a real patient. At the time of the hurricane, Emmett was 61 years old and waiting for colostomy surgery to get done to treat his chronic bowel obstruction. He was transferred from LifeCare’s Chalmette campus to the LifeCare hospital in Memorial. The Honduran-born manual laborer weighed 380 pounds at the time. Even though Emmett had suffered a spinal cord stroke at the age of 50, which left him as a paraplegic, he had maintained an appealing humor sense. He was very close to his wife, Carrie Everett, as well. Emmett didn’t have a do-not-resuscitate order during the time.
During the evacuation of the hospital, Emmett was aware of what had been happening there. “Cindy, don’t let them leave me behind,” Emmett told a LifeCare nurse named Cindy Chatelain after three of his roommates were moved, as per ‘Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital’ by Sheri Fink, the source text of the show. Diane discussed evacuating Emmett with Dr. Anna Pou.
“We [Diane, Pou, and two Memorial nurses] kind of went back and forth with scenarios if, ah, of whether or not he’ll [Emmett] be able to be evacuated in terms of, whether someone could physically or people could physically get him down the stairs and lift him through that hole to get on the helicopter and, ah, and you know, it, it was said that they, they didn’t think that, that was possible,” Diane said about the same, as per the source material. Several medical professionals, however, believed that they could have evacuated Emmett if they had been informed about him and his state, as per Sheri Fink.
Kristy Johnson, LifeCare’s director of physical medicine, told Justice Department investigators that she witnessed Pou and two nurses filling fluids into syringes from vials. Johnson revealed to the investigators that Pou said that she was going to give Emmett something “to help him with his dizziness.” According to Johnson, Pou then entered Emmett’s room and shut the door.
Emmett Everett Was Not Able to Make It
Unfortunately, Emmett was one of the patients who was discovered dead in Memorial after the hurricane and flood. After the autopsies, morphine was detected in the dead bodies of nine LifeCare patients, including Emmett. Forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht, hired by the Louisiana attorney general’s office, concluded that Emmett’s death was a homicide caused by human intervention. Anna Pou, along with two Memorial nurses, was charged with four counts of second-degree murder of four patients.
Emmett’s wife, Carrie Everett, filed wrongful death lawsuits against Tenet, LifeCare, Pou, and two Memorial nurses named Cheri Landry and Lori Budo. “Who gave them the right to play God? Who gave them the right?” Carrie asked about Emmett’s death on a CNN Katrina anniversary broadcast, as per the source text. Carrie and the Everetts knew about Emmett’s death fifteen days after it happened. According to Sheri Fink, Pou’s lawyer said that Emmett “almost certainly” died due to an enlarged heart rather than a lethal dose of drugs.
When a grand jury was sworn in to consider Anna’s case, the district attorney’s office prepared a 10-count bill of indictment bill against the then-Memorial doctor. The bill included one count of second-degree murder of Emmett and nine counts of the lesser conspiracy to commit second-degree murder of the nine LifeCare patients found dead. The grand jury decided against indicting Anna, which led to the exposition of charges against Anna.
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