CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Charlotte doctors remember a tent city, complete with over 100 residents, a police force and a fully outfitted hospital, all housed in a K-Mart parking lot in Waveland, Mississippi.
The police were all Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department SWAT officers and the hospital was MED-1, Carolinas Medical Center’s mobile hospital.
Charlotte medical crews staffed the hospital; they had left the Queen City for Mississippi just days after the eye of Katrina blew through.
“We knew the mission, we knew we were going to help people,” says Dr. Tom Blackwell, MED-1’s designer and the head of medic. “We didn't know where we were going, what we were going to be faced with once we got on the scene.”
Veteran emergency room doctors faced things they'd never seen before.
“It was kind of incredible to see the damage, miles along the coast line just erased,” says Dr. Lee Garvey.
The people left behind needed help. When the storm that took their town, it wiped out the local hospital too.
“We rolled in and started seeing those patients and it was a wonderful thing,” Blackwell says.
Garvey adds, “Their homes were destroyed, they were living in very difficult circumstances, most without any medicines.”
There were trauma surgeries, a stroke victim and cancer patients who needed care.
Charlotte's crew helped 7,500 patients in all in that Mississippi K-Mart parking lot.
“Each of them had a story they were willing to share it with us.”
MED-1 has since been to three national disasters. There is just one mobile hospital like it, based in Los Angeles.
