Dog Days: New in Non-Fiction

Reviewed by Brenda G.

Often I am a fiction reader, but here, I read two non-fiction works at once. Book number two explains why the first book’s miraculous escape, due to a man-dog partnership, was possible.

Thunder Dog: The True Story of a Blind Man, His Guide Dog, & the Triumph of Trust at Ground Zero, by Michael Hingson with Suzy Flory. Nashville: Thomas Nelson. 2011. 232 pages. Includes bibliography and notes.

I enjoyed Thunder Dog and the learning it provided not only about the dramatic escape from the World Trade Center, but also about the powerful relationship between the author and his guide dog Roselle. Many other topics are woven into the retelling of the events of September 11, 2001, including Hingson’s life, education, career, and information about guide dog training. I felt admiration for Hingson and his dog. Under extraordinary circumstances, they managed an impressive escape from the Twin Towers. After exiting the building, they had to escape the dust cloud that accompanied the collapse of the buildings, and then manage to find a way to his New Jersey home. A co-worker was with Hingson part of the way, down the stairs, out the door, through the dust cloud, into shelter, and then Hingson moved on again. The co-worker did not guide Hingson; Roselle did that. The friend’s help and companionship were beneficial but Hingson and Roselle seemed to be a fairly self-sufficient unit. I did occasionally become a bit impatient with some details of earlier and later life, but this is a good read about an admirable escape that casts a different light upon the experiences of those fortunate enough to escape the World Trade Center on that fateful day.

The Dog in the Cave : the Wolves who Made Us Human, by Kay Frydenborg.  Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017. 246 pages. Includes index and bibliography.

How many accolades can I give this book? How long have humans and dogs, first as gray wolves in Europe and Asia, the precursor of all dogs, a species now extinct, worked together for mutual benefit? Research is indicating a friendship encompassing some forty thousand years, much longer than scientists once believed. The facts and the research basis for those facts are clear and well-delineated in this work. Theories are described as such in an understandable way. The author describes research underway to determine the intelligence of dogs, probably greater than we ever believed, and the special bond that exists between humans and the dogs bonded to them. This bonding seems to involve the eyes of both – fascinating yet seemingly so observable.

This work is written for a young adult audience but is well-suited for adults. I recommend A Dog in the Cave to anyone interested in the topic, from the age of 12 to 99+. I am looking for other books on the topic and looking for another dog since Charley went to his heavenly reward last year.

Five Days At Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink

 Reviewed by William Wade

This is not a fun book to read.  Not by a long shot.  But it’s important, and a great many of us need to know this story and to consider the consequences of the events unfolded here.  Five Days at Memorial is the graphic account of what happened to a major hospital in New Orleans during the Katrina hurricane in September and October, 2005.

The first part of the book deals with the immediate aftermath of Katrina.  Initially the staff of Memorial Hospital thought they had survived the hurricane reasonably well – some blown-out windows, but they could be repaired.  City electricity was off because of downed power lines, but their own auxiliary generators were working well.  Then came the ominous news that a far worse disaster was upon them. The streets of downtown New Orleans were filling with water!  The main levees protecting the city had been breached!  City services such as water, sewerage, and electricity would all be disrupted for an indeterminable time.  Unfortunately, the auxiliary generators at Memorial were located on the first floor, and the rising water would put them out of operation.  The entire building would become dark, life-giving machines for patients would cease to work, elevators would be out of operation, and the water supply would be contaminated.  Clearly, Memorial Hospital had to be evacuated and the sooner the better.

Telephone service was also non-existent, and the staff had to communicate through internet and cell phones.   Emergency messages went out immediately, but all New Orleans was in a crisis no one could have imagined.  City and state authorities had no contingency plans for such a catastrophic emergency.  A call went out to the parent company in Texas which owned Memorial, but they had little to offer, and the hospital seemed to be on its own.  Memorial did have a helipad on the roof, but this rusted structure had not been used for a decade, and no one knew whether it was safe.  And so the staff acted on their own, triaging the patients and deciding to try to evacuate the least desperate cases first.  Over the next several days the National Guard sent some helicopters, and the landing pad did hold.  But it was an onerous task carrying each patient  through narrow dark stairwells to the roof, and the process was exceedingly slow.  Pilots complained that they could work much more efficiently by plucking  individuals from rooftops all over the city.  Finally a fleet of small boats was sent to take away those who were walking patients and could be deposited on a roadside beyond the flooded area.  This left the sickest patients, generally elderly and on life support.  Many were in a vegetative state and near death; they could probably not survive any kind of transportation.  Could the medical staff remain behind, waiting until they died?  And so a decision was apparently made, led by Dr. Anna Maria Pou, a prominent physician on the staff, that these last patients would be administered a lethal dose of morphine.  Was it an act of mercy, or was it murder?  One of the doctors asked the question: “Should we be doing this?”  Those words would come back later to be remembered again and again.  Finally all of the staff departed, and Memorial Hospital was left vacant and empty.

Part Two of Five Days at Memorial is a full and detailed account of the tangled aftermath that would ensue for weeks, months, and even years.  As the waters gradually abated, curious persons, chiefly the news media, approached Memorial Hospital and ventured inside.  The structure was unbelievably fetid from days of accumulating human waste and decaying bodies.  Some individuals fainted.  Others took pictures, and the grisly scenes were soon displayed on local television.  Authorities entered and carried away forty-five human bodies.  Questions soon arose: what happened at Memorial Hospital?  How did this come about?  Accusations were made; it became a major theme of the local news media, and before long questions were being asked nationally.  It was a feature on “Sixty Minutes.”  Relatives of the deceased wanted explanations.  Inevitably the authorities were brought into the picture and an official investigations was underway. The leading members of the staff, including Dr. Anna Marie Pou, were subpoenaed and their testimony taken.  Local citizens began to take sides.  In general Dr. Pou and her colleagues gave a similar response to questions: “ you were not there and cannot believe how horrible the situation was.  We acted in what we thought was best for our patients.”  But was it murder?  Finally it came down to the decision of a grand jury which had to decide whether Dr. Pou and others should be formally charged and tried for a criminal act.  By then most of the public was sympathetic to Dr. Pou, and the jury refused to indict.  Ultimately the whole matter was dropped, although fears lingered that it might resurface.

One of the most valuable parts of the book is a concluding Epilogue in which author Sheri Fink asks what lessons are to be learned from this episode.  After Katrina, did authorities throughout the United States take steps to prevent the repetition of Memorial.  For her answer she considers the actions of authorities when superstorm Sandy struck major Northeastern metropolitan areas and also the response to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.  Much has been done, but Fink finds our governmental authorities, our institutions, and our people in general remain unprepared for any kind of major catastrophe, whether caused by nature or through human design.  This is a book for all of us to read and to consider: how can we best prepare for the unthinkable?

The Unthinkable: Ultimate Survivors

The Unthinkable:  Who Survives When Disaster Strikes and Why by Amanda Ripley (155.935 RIP Main)

How likely are you to perish in a disaster? What are the odds you will be involved in a disaster? The answers to these questions and many more can be found in The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes and Why, by Amanda Ripley.

In her book Ripley, a senior writer for Time magazine, takes us through the various stages of disaster and cataclysm, examining how individuals react to catastrophic situations. Especially interesting is the fact that some people who should survive don't, while others survive against seemingly insurmountable odds.

I believe that having read this book could save your life if you are ever involved in a real disaster. Why? The first emotional reaction in a disaster is the one that might get you killed before you extricate yourself from a situation. That response is DENIAL. Oh, yeah, that's a big one. Apparently disaster is difficult for some people to accept when it falls into their laps, so instead of believing that the building is on fire and getting the heck out of it, they might dither around straightening the paper clips on their desk or looking at a phone list, increasing their chances of perishing. Yes, people really do this.


In 2005 the National Institute of Standards and Technology conducted a study based on interviews with World Trade Center survivors.  They discovered that survivors, on average, waited six minutes before exiting the building. The average dithering wait was six minutes, but some waited as long as forty-five minutes before deciding to exit the building.

During her research, Ms. Ripley interviewed Jack Rowley, an instructor at the National Fire Academy in Maryland. In thirty-five years as a firefighter, before becoming an instructor at the Fire Academy, he often witnessed this sort of lethargic response to fire.

Rowley told Ripley that one particular type of fire had come to seem like a Saturday night ritual. Firefighters would be dispatched to a bar where they would find customers sitting and nursing beers in a room that contained smoke.

It's pretty obvious in this situation that there is a fire somewhere near, but when firefighters would suggest to customers that they evacuate the response they got was often one like, "No, we'll be just fine."

Through her interviews with survivors, Ripley takes us on a voyage through a burning skyscraper, a sinking ship, and a crashed airplane.  In each case, most if not all of the survivors are those who were able to assess the situation and take some action instead of passively waiting for rescue.  You would think this would be an obvious move but there’s that denial thing again, plus in some cases an authority figure would tell the people to wait.  Often this was someone who wasn’t in the situation but was making a call from another location, yet people would ignore what was happening in front of them to take the advice of someone who was far away and safe.

This is a very educational read, but more than that, I would have to say that it's a readable read. It made me think about how I behave during a crisis and to rearrange some of my thinking. During the process of writing this review I found myself wanting to read the whole book again. One thing is for sure: whether I read this book again or not, you should be sure you read it for the first time.