JOINT INFORMATION CENTER

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 12, 2008

Department of Health and Hospitals News Update

Louisiana Chief Medical Officer Continues to Update Number of Gustav Fatalities

BATON ROUGE -- Please find the attached memo sent from Louisiana Chief Medical Officer Louis Cataldie, M.D., regarding fatalities related to Hurricane Gustav:

From: Louis Cataldie, M.D.
To: Secretary Alan Levine
Date: September 12, 2008
Re: Fatalities Related to Hurricane Gustav

This memorandum delineates the current number of confirmed hurricane-related fatalities. As Chief Medical Officer for the state of Louisiana, I am working closely with local coroners and police departments to identify fatalities as a result of Hurricane Gustav and offering assistance to local authorities.

I have confirmed 14 new fatalities today. The total fatalities related to Hurricane Gustav stands at 43.

Confirmations are being made as we continue to receive information from various parts of the state as well as from our out-of-state partners. It is an on-going process which requires assessments from many coroners throughout the region.

The newly confirmed fatalities consist of:
- Six deaths of medical evacuees in an Arkansas hospital of natural causes
- Seven deaths in Lafourche Parish of natural causes
- One death in East Baton Rouge Parish of natural causes

Any death that is determined by the jurisdictional coroner to have been caused as a result of Hurricane Gustav will be counted as a storm-related death. General criteria for classifying a death as hurricane-related include:

- Death due to activities associated with evacuation (i.e., evacuation stress precipitates a heart attack)
- Death due to the effects of the storm itself (i.e., a tree falls on a person during the storm)
- Death associated with recovery efforts (i.e., a person is electrocuted by a fallen electrical line while cleaning up fallen tree limbs)

I will continue to notify you at the end of each day of newly-confirmed deaths related to Hurricane Gustav.

For the latest on Hurricane Gustav, you can visit emergency.louisiana.gov or call the state's emergency hotline at 1-866-288-2484 to listen to a recorded message with the most up-to-date information.

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