Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital

Head-and-neck surgeon Pou is a hard-working and well-liked doctor and professor at Louisiana State University. As the Katrina disaster overtakes Memorial hospital, Pou agrees with a small set of her fellow physicians that some patients are too weak to survive, much less be evacuated, and should be given drugs to put them out of their misery. After the disaster, she is investigated and arrested, but her cause proves popular, and a grand jury refuses to indict her. She advocates for legislation that would indemnify emergency medical workers from the kind of scrutiny she has suffered.

An assistant attorney general with the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit and the state’s lead prosecutor in the Memorial case, Schafer wants Dr. Pou arrested. However, unlike his associate, Special Agent Virginia Rider, he is pragmatic about the uphill battle they face in convincing a jury to indict Pou.

Special agent Rider works for the state’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit; she is dedicated and hard driven. She believes in the case she and Butch Schafer have built against Anna Pou and is heartbroken when the grand jury refuses to indict the doctor.