Five Days At Memorial - General Discussion

[NotChristine]

Quote

Based on actual events and adapted from the book by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sheri Fink, “Five Days at Memorial” chronicles the impact of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath on a local hospital. When the floodwaters rose, power failed and heat soared, exhausted caregivers at a New Orleans hospital were forced to make decisions that would follow them for years to come.

[sadie]

This is the most anxiety ridden show I’ve watched in a long time. I live in a hurricane zone and have gone thru many storms, this is my worst nightmare. I love Vera Farmiga and she’s doing a great job. They are really making us feel the heat, the desperation, the struggle these people lived thru. I don’t know how they made all these actors look so hot and sweaty but boy is it working. I can’t wait for Ep 5. 

[zenten]

I read the book and was wondering when it would be made into a series. Never been in a hurricane but it must be frightening. 

[NotChristine]

14 hours ago, zenten said:

I read the book and was wondering when it would be made into a series. Never been in a hurricane but it must be frightening. 

Back in 2017, Ryan Murphy was  set to adapt the book as part of American Crime Story. IIRC, it never made it to production.

If anyone is interested,  I highly recommend Floodlines (a podcast that covers Katrina & the aftermath).

[go4luca]

Started watching last night and stayed up way past my bedtime.  The acting is quite well done and this show is beyond INTENSE.  Now eagerly awaiting E5.

Edited August 24, 2022 by go4luca

[zenten]

On 8/23/2022 at 4:20 PM, NotChristine said:

Back in 2017, Ryan Murphy was  set to adapt the book as part of American Crime Story. IIRC, it never made it to production.

If anyone is interested,  I highly recommend Floodlines (a podcast that covers Katrina & the aftermath).

Yes, and I was looking forward to the Ryan Murphy adaptation. I wonder why nothing further was done?

On 8/24/2022 at 1:10 PM, go4luca said:

Started watching last night and stayed up way past my bedtime.  The acting is quite well done and this show is beyond INTENSE.  Now eagerly awaiting E5.

Also eagerly awaiting episode 5. Binge watched the first three and caught up the other night. Still don’t understand how this happened in the USA in 2005! 

[ferjy]

On 8/25/2022 at 3:12 PM, zenten said:

Also eagerly awaiting episode 5. Binge watched the first three and caught up the other night. Still don’t understand how this happened in the USA in 2005! 

I know, it’s unbelievable! And how does a hospital that is in a hurricane zone not have a flood evacuation plan?

I thought there were only 5 episodes (you know, day 5...) and was scratching my head at the abrupt ending but there are 3 more episodes to come!

[sadie]

Can anyone explain why on day five when help arrived to evacuate would they need to kill the patients at that point in time? The cavalry has arrived they were going to get them all out. This is the only part that didn’t make a lot of sense to me, I could maybe understand on day three with no help and site doing it but when the Coast Guard was literally in the building taking people away why do it then?

[SHD]

9 hours ago, sadie said:

Can anyone explain why on day five when help arrived to evacuate would they need to kill the patients at that point in time? The cavalry has arrived they were going to get them all out. This is the only part that didn’t make a lot of sense to me, I could maybe understand on day three with no help and site doing it but when the Coast Guard was literally in the building taking people away why do it then?

I might’ve misunderstood, but it seemed like they knew they couldn’t get everyone out by the 5 PM deadline when the guy said the boats would stop coming and everyone needed to leave.

The scene with all the pets tore my heart apart. And the look on the face of that head guy’s wife when they’d just put their dog down and then saw someone else get the OK to bring her dog on the boat. 😢😢😢

[bilgistic]

I was so angry at the scene of the pets all in that one room together, and then the doctor's (executioner's) dog yelping when he killed him. I can't find anything specific about people's pets being killed, but I haven't read the book. I just can't deal with pet death on TV. 

I saw how horrific it all was for people. I remember watching the news footage and seeing human bodies laying around like disregarded trash. I know pets were abandoned and people had to make hard choices, but the show just went too far for me.

I have two cats, and I'd lay down and die for them. I have had two other cats that I've had to have euthanized when they were too ill to function (acute kidney disease with one; CKD, IBD and pancreatitis with the other). I get when it's "time." Animals do understand. They have complex emotions just as we do.

[TakomaSnark]

I'm so glad this wasn't a Ryan Murphy series.

Day Five is horrifying. The way Ridley framed the deaths of the animals and the abandonment of patients is Peabody worthy. 

Farmiga and the rest of the cast should be Emmy frontrunners in 2023. These images are haunting.

[pasdetrois]

This series is almost unbearable to watch because they are prolonging the suffering. They could have told the story in four episodes. I don't need to see nurses shuffling like zombies in 20 scenes, endlessly fanning patients, having cryptic conversations about "nobody suffering" to understand how horrible the situation was. It must have felt like years to everyone who endured it, but it's annoying to watch.

I wonder if the 5pm deadline was a real thing. It's very bizarre. Why was it imperative that everyone be out by 5pm, if more could have been saved, or allowed to die later with their loved ones?

I recall stories of a nursing home where many patients were abandoned and died. Is LifeCare meant to be a composite story?

My NOLA family got out by shoving stuff into trucks, driving inland, and camping out on a relative's property. One group of them drove from town to town, trying to find a hotel with available rooms., and they ended up in Arkansas. Days after the storm there was no gasoline for sale and the ATMs were empty of cash. We had to actually FEDEX cash to them.

Edited August 28, 2022 by pasdetrois

[TakomaSnark]

10 hours ago, bilgistic said:

I was so angry at the scene of the pets all in that one room together, and then the doctor's (executioner's) dog yelping when he killed him. I can't find anything specific about people's pets being killed, but I haven't read the book. I just can't deal with pet death on TV. 

I saw how horrific it all was for people. I remember watching the news footage and seeing human bodies laying around like disregarded trash. I know pets were abandoned and people had to make hard choices, but the show just went too far for me.

I have two cats, and I'd lay down and die for them. I have had two other cats that I've had to have euthanized when they were too ill to function (acute kidney disease with one; CKD, IBD and pancreatitis with the other). I get when it's "time." Animals do understand. They have complex emotions just as we do.

You can read the 2009 story 'The Deadly Choices At Memorial' for more details on the situation.

I can't fathom having to choose between staying to watch someone die in flood waters/heat and leaving them, let alone a pet. The real culprits here are the government officials who failed this hospital. It is all so heartbreaking.

[AntFTW]

I just watched the first episode. I'm hooked. I loved it. The acting is phenomenal.

[bilgistic]

3 hours ago, TakomaSnark said:

You can read the 2009 story 'The Deadly Choices At Memorial' for more details on the situation.

I can't fathom having to choose between staying to watch someone die in flood waters/heat and leaving them, let alone a pet. The real culprits here are the government officials who failed this hospital. It is all so heartbreaking.

The article said two cats were euthanized, not the roomful of pets that the doctor put down in the show. If that was the case in real life, I'm even madder at the show's complete inaccuracy for the sake of extremely heightened drama.

[Duke2801]

Oh man this show is well done. But it’s a TOUGH watch.. the suffering, the helplessness, the horrific choices they had to make. Just gut wrenching.

 I need to watch 2 or 3 episodes of a lighthearted sitcom after each episode. 
 

[zenten]

On 8/27/2022 at 12:58 AM, ferjy said:

I know, it’s unbelievable! And how does a hospital that is in a hurricane zone not have a flood evacuation plan?

I thought there were only 5 episodes (you know, day 5...) and was scratching my head at the abrupt ending but there are 3 more episodes to come!

On 8/27/2022 at 12:58 AM, ferjy said:

I know, it’s unbelievable! And how does a hospital that is in a hurricane zone not have a flood evacuation plan?

I thought there were only 5 episodes (you know, day 5...) and was scratching my head at the abrupt ending but there are 3 more episodes to come!

It’s mind-boggling. Below sea level and no flood evacuation plan,really?

On 8/27/2022 at 5:42 AM, sadie said:

Can anyone explain why on day five when help arrived to evacuate would they need to kill the patients at that point in time? The cavalry has arrived they were going to get them all out. This is the only part that didn’t make a lot of sense to me, I could maybe understand on day three with no help and site doing it but when the Coast Guard was literally in the building taking people away why do it then?

It seemed like the Coast Guard  had no interest in helping staff get the patients out. 

11 hours ago, TakomaSnark said:

You can read the 2009 story 'The Deadly Choices At Memorial' for more details on the situation.

I can't fathom having to choose between staying to watch someone die in flood waters/heat and leaving them, let alone a pet. The real culprits here are the government officials who failed this hospital. It is all so heartbreaking.

Thanks for the link.After I read Five Days at Memorial, I read several other Katrina related books. It’s such a horrific tragedy. 
 

it’s difficult to watch but well done. . 

[AntFTW]

17 hours ago, Duke2801 said:

Oh man this show is well done. But it’s a TOUGH watch.. the suffering, the helplessness, the horrific choices they had to make. Just gut wrenching.

 I need to watch 2 or 3 episodes of a lighthearted sitcom after each episode. 
 

It's heartbreaking.

The show does a really good job of putting the viewer right in the thick of it.

[MaggieG]

I was also confused by the 5 PM deadline. The Coast Guard was all "everybody leave!" and I'm like, no shit, they've been trying to evacuate for  days! And if they were there to make sure everyone left, why couldn't they offer more help to the patients? That scene where the daughter begged to say goodbye to her mom broke me. As well as the scene of the pregnant LifeCare nurse saying goodbye to her patient (I can't recall everyone's names at this moment). 

I wonder if the story of that guy and his wife getting his mom out of the hospital was true. The security guard jumping in the boat was cold. 

I've been to NOLA in the summertime and the humidity is no joke. They're doing a great job with this show because you can feel it through the screen. I can't imagine how miserable everyone must have been stuck inside that hospital with no air. 

[DanielleBowden]

On 8/30/2022 at 9:12 AM, MaggieG said:

I wonder if the story of that guy and his wife getting his mom out of the hospital was true.

Yes, it was a true story.  His mom died four days after her rescue.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/05/25/johnston.memorialdeath/

[bourbon]

Just catching up with this. I watched the first few episodes absolutely riveted. The stench, the heat, the hunger...almost palpable. I had a knot in the pit of my stomach as the doctors had to make agonizing choices. There was no black or white, only harrowing, tragic grey areas. It was nuanced and gut-wrenching in a way that a show like this really should be...all until the final episode when the creators seemingly couldn't resist weighing in about how virtuous they were. What a blunder to make the dithering Robert Pine character the show's moral compass when he checked out early on, unable to handle the stress, leaving it to people like Dr. Pou. It really undid everything for me. When decisions like these need to be made, it is the ones in charge that are forced to live with those consequences, wondering if they did the right thing, wondering if there was another way, and left with a sense of guilt even if they believe unswervingly in what they did. Then Pine comes in and delivers a verbal spanking he had no right to make. A great show undone by moral grandstanding. 

Edited December 16, 2022 by bourbon