No Ordinary Heroes: 8 Doctors, 30 Nurses, 7,000 Prisoners and a Category 5 Hurricane

This is a first hand Katrina story that you didn't see on television or read about in National Geographic. The dedicated personnel of the parish prison hang together through the uncertainty of a dismal situation. The classic struggles are here with good vs. evil and weak vs. strong. The medical staff continues to carry on with their work while cut off from the outside world. The outnumbered deputies refuse to give up as the days go on. While this book should be required reading for law enforcement and disaster planning teams, it is very good reading for the mainstream public. This is action and suspense-for real!

Reading this first hand account of Katrina was like watching the movie Titanic... - you know the iceberg; you know the event ending - but what you get is the real story of what happened during those fateful days in the confines of an island within the sea of Kartina aftermath. I found myself clenching my jaw as I turned the pages to see what happens next; wanting desperately to make sure the dedicated people in this heroic chronicle survived. I found myself carried along with each of them as they took matters into their own hands and made life changing decisions at each turn. I kept flipping to the pictures of the people as I read - trying to imagine them in the scenarios described. If a Category 5 hit Philadelphia, I would want this gang in my corner

This was a great story. I really felt like I knew the doctors and the nurses personally and could not put it down until I knew whether or not they were safely rescued.

This well written book is a must read. As the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaches and the nation remembers the tragedy caused by nature and our government, it is wonderful to read about the heroes that rose to help those in need. The book is a thrilling adventure filled with horror, fear, laughs, and raw emotions. You won't want to put this book down until you're done. I sure hope this story is made into a movie!

This face-paced book was so engaging and interesting that I read it in one sitting - I honestly couldn't put it down. While it's impossible to truly imagine what it would have been like to be trapped in a jail with thousands of hungry, violent inmates, dealing without power, swimming through foul water to carry out duties that many workers abandoned, Inglese's dialogue and characters make you feel like you were there. Like Into Thin Air or The Perfect Storm, the book not only tells a gripping adventure story, but one that was even more engrossing and readable. There are a lot of stories about prison life, from the perspective of inmate or guard, but the story of the people who are charged with caring for the people whom society would like to ignore is rarely told. This book tells the story of those people, the nurses and doctors who cared for the discarded in the face of one of the country's worst natural disasters. The resulting tale of heroism, comraderie, danger, and humanity makes for a great read.