Doctor helps hurricane victims

J. Craig Anderson

Friday, Sept. 23, 2005 | 10:07 a.m.

Dr. John Kiley speaks quickly and provides terse answers. He pauses to check his packing list: poncho, flashlight, gloves, dust mask.

This isn't a good time to talk. If Kiley had known he was going to be deployed Thursday morning, he would have canceled the interview.

As it stands, he has about 30 minutes to finish stuffing his rucksack, don a uniform and head for McCarran International Airport, where he will catch the last scheduled flight to Dallas/Fort Worth before its airport is shut down.

The Las Vegas resident is not an Army Ranger or an international spy. He is a 68-year-old psychiatrist, heading cross-country to assist hurricane victims for the second time in less than a month.

Kiley, who works at High Desert State Prison in Indian Springs, belongs to a volunteer emergency organization known as the Nevada 1 Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT). He has agreed to meet up with the team's counterparts in Texas to offer his services treating victims of Hurricane Rita.

Kiley's experience helping hurricane victims in New Orleans taught him exactly what to bring. Ziploc bags stacked neatly on his bed each contain a T-shirt, a pair of boxer shorts and two pairs of socks.

"You need to wear two pairs," he said. "Otherwise your feet will get chewed up."

Still, Rita is sure to pose her own unanticipated challenges. Kiley knows he must be ready for anything.

During the two weeks he spent in the Gulf Coast, after landing in Baton Rouge the day Hurricane Katrina struck, Kiley was tasked to perform a number of duties outside the realm of psychiatry.

"I ended up giving morphine shots to the dying people, trying to make them more comfortable ... to helping unload choppers, to just doing anything that needed doing," he said.

The bulk of Kiley's service took place at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, where he and other emergency workers literally lived in the airport, treating patients in tents set up in the terminal lobby and sleeping -- very little -- on rubber baggage claim belts at night.

During his first three days at the airport, Aug. 31 to Sept. 2, Kiley and members of the Texas 4 DMAT screened about 72,000 victims. As many as 20,000 had medical problems that were treated when possible. An estimated 60 people eventually died.

Kiley's team continued to see patients for 72 hours straight without a break. They worked with limited medical supplies, no electricity, no phones, no air conditioning and little clean water for sanitation.

"Triage becomes difficult, and you sometimes have to make decisions about who you can save and who you can't save," he said. "That's one of the things that bothered all of us: Did we make the right decision?"

The crew at first subsisted on MREs, prepackaged meals used by the military that are designed more for imperishability than taste. The airport had running water, but it was well water and deemed unsafe for drinking or cleaning.

Eventually, customized tractor-trailers arrived containing clean showers and kitchens. The whole time Kiley was living at the airport, the steady stream of patients never stopped.

When the two weeks were up, Kiley volunteered to stay on longer, but the team commander sent him home Sept. 9.

Now, less than two weeks later, Kiley said he is happy to jump back into the fray because it is important work and not just anyone can do it.

"It's a unique opportunity," he said. "I mean, how many guys my age get to do something like this?"

Kiley's wife, Ruth, stands by watching her husband finish packing his rucksack, which looks almost as big as he is and weighs 60 to 70 pounds.

"I know he's capable of taking care of himself and other people, so I don't really worry about him in that way," she said. "If he's happy doing it, you just go with the flow."