Mismanagement compounded Puerto Rico’s Maria agony
Instead, this disabled, 59-year-old woman died a month later, from sepsis — caused, says her family, by an untreated bedsore.
In all, the storm and its aftermath took the lives of unfortunates like Gonzalez and thousands of others, many of whom could have been saved with standard medical treatment. This was a slow-motion, months-long disaster that kept Puerto Ricans from getting the care they needed for treatable ailments, even as President
A year after Maria roared across the
Trump cast doubt on the storm's widely accepted death toll Thursday, tweeting that "3000 people did not die" when Maria hit after a near-miss by Hurricane Irma in September, 2017. He said the death count had been inflated "by the
But the joint investigation reflects how
Disabled and elderly people were discharged from overwhelmed hospitals with bedsores that led to fatal infections. Medical oxygen ran out. People caught lung infections in sweltering private nursing homes and state facilities. Kidney patients got abbreviated treatments from dialysis centers that lacked generator fuel and fresh water, despite pleas for federal and local officials to treat them as a higher priority, according to patient advocates.
There was
Along with post-storm conditions, each death has a complex mix of causes that can include serious pre-existing conditions and individual decisions by patients, caregivers and doctors, making it difficult to definitively apportion blame in every case. But critics say many could have been saved by better preparation and emergency response.
"I was looking for help and no one came," said
The Gonzalez home is 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) from the convention center that served as headquarters for thousands of federal and local emergency responders for more than a month after the storm. Maria and her brother took Ramona to a hospital twice, and tried to get her aboard a
"No one was asking after us, no one from the government," said
The hurricane's true death toll has fueled debate since the first days of the storm, in large part because of the near-unique nature of the disaster.
Largely due to decades of neglect and years of fiscal crisis, the Puerto Rican electrical grid collapsed into
Researchers from
Though Trump continued to assert this week that his administration's efforts in
As for the Trump administration, more than half of federal emergency personnel in
An after-action report by
In an op-ed written in
"Nothing can be further from the truth," he wrote. "Instead, the report is a transformational document intended to build upon successes."
Desperate, Ramona's siblings tried to get her aboard the USNS Comfort, a
"I called someone at the medical center but they put me through to another number and then someone called and said it had to be handled by a doctor over there,"
On
"We have done a really great job," he said.
Over the last year, the CPI, Quartz and AP project collected hundreds of reports from Puerto Ricans who believed their relatives had died because of the storm. The names of the dead were matched against a database of death certificates released by the Puerto Rican government after a lawsuit by the CPI.
Of those that matched, journalists interviewed as many relatives of the dead as possible and reviewed responses sent to the project through online surveys when relatives couldn't be reached.
Most of the deaths in the database are considered indirect, meaning they were not caused by winds or flooding but rather made more likely because of factors like the lack of power, fresh water and medical supplies after the storm. The project did not interview the patients' doctors and the death certificates themselves make no link to Maria. The Puerto Rican government acknowledges that hundreds or thousands of deaths should have been classified as storm-related but weren't, due to doctors' lack of training on how to correctly fill out death certificates.
An analysis of every single death in
The analysis also showed big jumps in deaths related to respiratory diseases, accidents, and suicides, as well as increases in deaths among Puerto Ricans ages 30 to 44, despite the widespread belief that the disaster mostly affected the aged.
Dr.
"These are deaths that could have been avoided," Nazario said.
Rossello said two warehouses filled with water and food are operating in the island's north and south coasts, and that another two will open soon. Prior to Maria, there were none.
He also said the government now has lists that identify vulnerable populations, including those who live in nursing homes, and direct emergency lines have been installed in some nursing homes and other vulnerable locations.
With public water systems down due to lack of power after the Category 4 storm,
"We were there at
The private center in far western
When it reopened, it rationed dialysis and Lopez received two hours of dialysis per session, less than half of what he received before the storm, friends and family said.
"His face changed color completely. His face was really pale. He got dialysis and changed back, his face got color. But in those days after the storm he looked pale, yellowish, really bad," said Lady
Lopez died on
There was no answer at the publicly listed number for Lopez's primary doctor.
This month, Paola wrote about her father when her teacher asked the class to hand in short essays about the people they considered their hero.
"In my memories, I have my super hero, strong and protective, who takes care of me and loves me," she wrote. "He had a lot of battles, but in the last battle, Hurricane Maria beat him."
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Visit the interactive database of victims at: hurricanemariasdead.com
In Spanish: losmuertosdemaria.com
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