For a moment, Gershanik considered the larger reality, the competing priorities that had emerged as waters suffocated an entire city. He was only doing what is ingrained in a doctor—advocating for his own patients—but now he saw that the struggle to save lives extended far beyond the two critically ill neonates in the helicopter, or Memorial’s entire population of sick babies, or even the whole hospital, much as it had seemed like the universe when he was back there. He used the delay to switch oxygen tanks with some difficulty. He apologized for his impatience.
