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American Morning

Searching for Victims; Patient Safety

Aired March 02, 2006 - 09:34   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: As Kelly mentioned, a gruesome task going on today for a team of 16 firefighters in New Orleans Ninth Ward. They're going out looking for bodies, victims of Katrina. Firefighters are going out there along with cadaver-sniffing dogs.
Let's head live to New Orleans Ninth Ward now and CNN's Keith Oppenheim.

Keith, why the search now? And do they expect to find any bodies after six months?

KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: To the second question, yes, they do. And the first question is because of concerns of demolition. Take a look at what's going behind me. You can see why the idea of demolition is going on, because it's an incredible mess here in the Lower Ninth Ward. And with demolition possibly scheduled here in the next few weeks, the team of 16 firefighters here today will try to go to homes and to piles of rubble and to get in there and possibly find dozens of bodies, they tell us.

We take you back to some video from the fall when similar searches were going on. But there was a sense that search was never completed. And now with the possibility of demolition under way here in the next couple of weeks, there's a concern that if the demolition were to happen before the search here for dead bodies is completed, those human remains could be lost. The state medical examiner explains to us why he believes there are still dead bodies in the Lower Ninth Ward.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. LOUIS CATALDIE, LOUISIANA MEDICAL EXAMINER: You can see that surge was tremendous. People were still in those houses. Those houses have totally collapsed and piled on top of each other. It would be unrealistic to think that there aren't human remains after that surge.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OPPENHEIM: Cataldie told me that they are going to go through this house by house in places where they believe there's the possibility, Carol, of there being human remains on a site. And he says it can take a day and a half per house. It is painstaking, slow work.

Back to you.

COSTELLO: Sad work. Keith Oppenheim reporting live from New Orleans Ninth Ward this morning.

(WEATHER REPORT)

COSTELLO: The music biz is getting an unlikely boost from a group of consumers you wouldn't expect. I've got a hint, though. Check out your kids' rooms. Stay tuned to find out about that, coming up next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MARKET REPORT)

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: CNN LIVE TODAY is coming up next. Carol Lin in for Daryn today.

Hello, Carol.

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Hey there, Miles.

Welcome back from the hurricane zone.

At the top of the hour, you saw the Mardi Gras celebrations this week, but there were no parties in this Gulf Coast town. We're going to take you to Erbi (ph), six months after Hurricane Katrina, where residents are feeling forgotten.

Plus, this could be Microsoft's answer to the iPod. The Internet is all abuzz over Origami. What is it? Well, I've got a speak peek at the high tech toy coming up.

Miles, can you imagine a PC the size of a paperback. You can have a GPS, all kinds of stuff.

O'BRIEN: I want it.

LIN: Yes, I know. We're going to find out about it.

O'BRIEN: I need to get me one.

All right, thank you, Carol. See you in a bit.

LIN: All right.

O'BRIEN: You've already got plenty on your mind when you go to the hospital, so you don't want to worry about doctors making mistakes.

Coming up, tips on avoiding dangerous medical errors. Stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: If you think there's no need to be concerned for your safety in a hospital, think again. Medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen has more in this morning's "House Call."

Pretty frightening.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It is frightening. People don't realize that between 44,000 and 98,000 poem a year die from medical errors. That's according to estimates from experts. It's a huge number. Even if you take that lower number, that is still more people than die from AIDS, or breast cancer or highway accidents. It is, it is a huge number.

So there are some things you can do, especially if you keep in mind that a lot of the errors are medication errors. You and I were discussing during the break, getting the wrong medication, getting the medication you're allergic to. Not a good thing.

Let's go through some tips for things you can do when you're in the hospital to protect yourself. Now the first one is to be observant and bring an advocate with you. A medical errors expert said to me, I sat in the hospital room and saw a mother say, that IV bag has the name of another child on it. Not my child. She said the expert also said she sat in another friend's room, and someone said, why are you giving my mother blue pills. She's never had blue pills. She always has orange pills. And so that's a family member, or sometimes the patient, if they're well enough, just being aware of what's going on around them.

COSTELLO: Well, and the other thing is sometimes you'll notice a mistake as a patient and you'll talk to not the doctor or the nurse, and they'll look at you like you're the biggest idiot on the planet. What if you feel helpless like that, like you feel as if no one's listening to you.

COHEN: Right. If you feel like no one is listening to you, one thing you can do, especially in larger hospitals, is it will have an ombudsman. An ombudsman is there for that situation. It's supposed to be someone who is there to advocate for the patient. And if you have been in hospital rooms where they have a little card with the ombudsman's name, and phone number and how to get a hold of them. It's not foolproof, but it's at least something that you can do.

And we have a couple more tips for things that you can do when you're in the hospital. Get your medication list in writing. Ask a nurse, say, what time am I supposed to get what medications? And if they're pills, what do these medications look like. So that you can prevent that, getting a blue pill when you should have been getting an orange pill, and so that can help a lot.

Also make sure your nurse sees your bracelet. It sounds like it's a simple thing, but sometimes John Smith gets Bob Smith's medicine. So if you make sure they see your bracelet -- and some of the bigger and better hospitals now actually have a bar code scanner, so that you're not just relying on reading a name; there's actually a code there.

And then the last one is, ask staff to wash their hands. And that sounds like a small thing, but it's really not. A lot of sort of unexpected hospital deaths or illnesses can be due to infections that you get in the hospital. And you may sound silly, saying, Dr. Smith, can I see you, could you wash your hands like right here, right now; I want to see it. But there are obviously nice ways to do it. And if they are really, truly professionals, they won't mind doing that. They'll understand that you want to see them wash their hands.

COSTELLO: Yes, and it's bad if you're too sick to even ask. That's the scary thing.

COHEN: That is the scary thing, and that's why it's so important to have a family member or friend with you. That can make a big difference. There have been studies that find that married people have better outcomes in the hospital. Well, one of the reasons they think is that they have someone there with them watching out for that. If you're really sick, you can't be keeping track of all this.

COSTELLO: Good advice. Thank you, Elizabeth. Back to you, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Thank you very much, Carol.

Coming up, the Oscars are this weekend. But it seems middle America is not going to be tuning in. A look at why is ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Hollywood's biggest night this Sunday, and America is abuzz with excitement. Or is it? Just as quick as you can say "Brokeback," the heartland of America is riding off into the sunset.

CNN's Brooke Anderson with more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROOKE ANDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): Far from the glitz and glamour of Hollywood lies Lebanon, Kansas, population 250 people, median age 52. A place where three houses recently sold for a grand total of $11,000 on eBay.

Many have asked the question, is Hollywood out of touch with middle America? What better place to find out than the middle of America. This is the geographic center of the continental United States in Lebanon, Kansas.

RANDY MAUS, LEBANON RESIDENT: Out here, at least in rural America where you could say it's the Bible belt, we're still looking for movies that have creative substance and a storyline.

ANDERSON: Randy Maus is a Lebanon transplant from the Boston area. He, along with other Lebanon residence, including the ladies in the Methodist Church bell choir, aren't exactly thrilled with the films the Oscars are honoring.

Has anybody seen "Brokeback Mountain?"

LADIES: No.

ANDERSON: Anybody want to see it? LADIES: No.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're just not interested in all the sex and skin.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's just not my style of life.

ANDERSON: What kind of movies do you want Hollywood to make?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What about "The Sound of Music" and some of those?

LADIES: Right. Right.

ANDERSON: We stopped by the Lebanon hotspot, Ladow's Market, where one local told us Hollywood just can't relate to a farming way of life?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They've never been back in here to know what it's like to actually have to make a living doing this.

ANDERSON: The closest theater is 12 miles away in Smith Center, Kansas. One movie theater, one film shown per week, and none of the movies nominated for best picture have played here.

MIKE HUGHES, CENTER THEATER: We have a large senior citizen base, so we gear a lot of our movies towards that and our children's pictures do real well.

ANDERSON: So say you put "Brokeback Mountain" on the screen?

HUGHES: I feel it would not play very well. It wouldn't be profitable for us.

ANDERSON: Dave Karger, a senior writer for "Entertainment Weekly," says profits aren't the driving force behind the Academy Awards.

DAVE KARGER, "ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY": They're about recognizing the five best movies of the year, not the five most profitable movies of the year.

ANDERSON: Here in the middle of America, in Lebanon, the Oscars are as far from their minds as they seem to be from the minds of those in Hollywood.

Does anyone plan to watch the Academy Awards?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the Oscars are for the people in California. I don't think anybody else really cares.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why waste your time? We'll come to bell choir practice.

ANDERSON: Brooke Anderson, CNN, Lebanon, Kansas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Now tomorrow on AMERICAN MORNING, a closer look at the Oscars. We've got predictions with "US" magazine's Bradley Jacobs, for those of us who will be watching. That's all for this edition of CNN's AMERICAN MORNING. We're glad you joined us.

I'm Miles O'Brien.

COSTELLO: I'm Carol Costello. Carol Lin is here right now to take you through the rest of -- actually the next couple of hours.

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