Katrina victims anguished at leaving behind pets
Last Updated Sun, 04 Sep 2005 16:21:09 EDT
CBC News
As Valerie Bennett was evacuated from Lindy Boggs Medical Center in New Orleans, her rescuers told her there was no room in the boat for her two dogs.
NEW ORLEANS - SEPTEMBER 03: Donnie Panarello Sr. (R) and Donnie Panarello Jr. (L) pull dogs Chance (2nd R) and Buddy down a flooded street as they evacuate the hard-hit Chalmette community of Saint Bernard's Parish September 3, 2005 in New Orleans. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
She pleaded. "I offered him my wedding ring and my mom's wedding ring," the 34-year-old nurse said Saturday.
They wouldn't budge. She and her husband could bring only one item, and they already had a plastic tub containing the medicines her husband, a liver transplant recipient, needed to survive.
It's a scene that's been repeated over and over again during the past week: rescued pet owners, forced to leave their animals behind.
In an oft-repeated story reported last week by The Associated Press, a police officer took a dog from a little boy waiting to get on a bus leaving New Orleans. "Snowball! Snowball!" the boy cried until he vomited. The policeman told a reporter he didn't know what would happen to the dog.
Some at the medical centre, fearing their animals would starve without them, asked a doctor to euthanize them. He improvised a makeshift gas chamber by wrapping a dog kennel in plastic.
"The bigger dogs were fighting it. Fighting the gas. It took them longer. When I saw that, I said 'I can't do it,"' said Bennett's husband, Lorne.
The Bennetts ended up leaving their dogs with the anesthesiologist, who had promised to care for people's pets - about 30 in total - on the roof of the centre.
"He said he'd stay there as long as he possibly could," said Valerie Bennett, speaking from her husband's bedside at Atlanta's Emory University Hospital. She said that Saturday, he was still there, according to a posting on the PetFinder web site.
Louisiana State Treasurer John Kennedy, who was helping with relief efforts Saturday, said some hurricane victims were refusing to leave without their pets.
"One woman told me 'I've lost my house, my job, my car and I am not turning my dog loose to starve,"' Kennedy said.
He said he persuaded refugees to get on the bus by telling them he would have the animals taken to an exhibition centre.
The U.S. Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals picked up two cats and 15 dogs, including one Kennedy found tied up beneath the overpass next to an unopened can of dog food with a sign that read "Please take care of my dog, his name is Chucky."
The fate of pets is a huge but underappreciated cause of anguish for storm survivors, said Richard Garfield, professor of international clinical nursing at New York's Columbia University.
"People in shelters are worried about 'Did Fluffy get out?"' he said. "It's very distressing for people, wondering if their pets are isolated or starving."
The Bennetts had four animals, including two beloved dogs.
On Saturday, as Hurricane Katrina approached, both went to the hospital to help and took all four animals with them.
They fed their guinea pig and left it in its cage in a patient room. They couldn't refill its empty water bottle because the hospital's plumbing failed Sunday, they said. They poured food on the floor for the cat, but again no water.
"I just hope that they forgive me," Valerie Bennett cried.
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