Awards & RecognitionChemical engineering professor impresses national engineering education organization

National organization recognizes student's achievments

Faculty member recognized for dedication to students

Boeing—the world’s leading aerospace company—selects BCoE aerospace professor for Boeing Welliver Faculty Fellowship Program

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Special Podcast Release    "Science Guy" visits MSU
Thanks to his energetic performances on television, Bill Nye is known to most as the “Science Guy,” but during a recent visit to MSU he reveled his other passions. Nye is a strong supporter of science education because he knows the future of our world will soon be in the hands of today’s children. While visiting campus, he also took the time to discuss hybrid vehicles with members of the BCoE’s national champion Challenge X team. Nye was given the opportunity to drive the vehicle and inspect the students’ craftsmanship while examining the inner-workings of the car.
Click here to listen.

Momentum Preview    Click here to download and see Momentum before it goes out in the mail. Hard copies will be arriving in your mailboxes later this May.

Alumni Spotlight: Performing in extraordinary circumstances

Few events in recent memory have affected Mississippi and the Gulf Coast region as much as Hurricane Katrina. Nearly three years after the storm made landfall, the area and its residents still bear its scars. For many, the entire event unfolded on television. However, for Dr. Allen Butler, it happened right in front of his eyes, forcing him to perform ordinary professional activities in extraordinary circumstances.

“I had been through other hurricanes in New Orleans during my time in medical school. We were basically expecting that it would blow through and things would be disrupted for a day or two,” Butler explained. “No one expected that we would be trapped for five days.”

Butler, a Mississippi State graduate in biological engineering, was in New Orleans, La., after having completed his medical degree at Tulane University. In August 2005, his final year of residency, he was serving as the chief resident of orthopedics at Tulane and Charity hospitals when the hurricane struck. Following the institutions’ disaster protocol he and a team of seven orthopedists stayed behind to care for their patients after the evacuation orders were given.

“The hurricane itself blew out our windows, but after it passed we actually walked around outside. The levees didn’t break until later, so we really thought we had dodged a bullet,” Butler said. “We didn’t realize that something was wrong until later that evening when we started seeing water in the street.”

Immediately following the storm, the hospitals maintained power, thanks to back-up generators, giving Butler no reason to think this storm had been any different from the others he had weathered. However, water began to rise in the streets and the generators, which were on the first floor, failed taking with them the doctors’ ability to use much of their medical equipment, methods of communication and air conditioning in the Louisiana heat.

“Once it began flooding we realized something was really wrong. Our cell phone batteries began to die so we only had spotty communication,” Butler noted. “However, it was through those few messages we received, that we found out about the looting, rioting and the extent of the flooding. We began to have people wading through the water trying to get into the hospitals and the medical school; luckily part of our protocol was to have security guards outside. They were able to keep us safe in the buildings.”

Although it was safe, staying inside the hospital was not an option. The doctors had patients at both Tulane and Charity’s facilities and needed to make the rounds. Each hospital and its medical units had different needs that required the transportation of not only staff, but also supplies between the buildings, which were two blocks apart. Even though the water level had reached four feet on their street, the doctors had to find a way to continue their work.

“One of the doctors on my service had brought a canoe, just in case, and chained it to a support beam in the parking garage. Luckily it was still there when we went to retrieve it, and it provided us with transportation between the two hospitals,” Butler recalled. “It was good to have the canoe for transporting blood and medicine, but it was scary. People were frustrated and they began to threaten us as we were rowing between the two hospitals. People wanted our canoe.”

For days, the doctors traveled by canoe to care for their patients at both facilities, making sure to set up times to meet and make sure everyone was still safe. However, with each passing day, the conditions deteriorated as the plumbing failed causing sewage to backup, and the morgue at one hospital flooded. Even, in the unfathomable conditions, the hospital workers had to continue to perform their duties. With a few emergency cases trickling in, Butler found himself faced with performing procedures without the benefit of electrical equipment.

“We had a guy come in with a broken bone, but without x-ray equipment I had to set it by feel,” Butler said. “Luckily, I had trained at Charity (hospital) where we didn’t always have the best equipment and I was able to get him fixed up. Thankfully, we didn’t have any cases come up that required really serious operations.”

While the doctors felt blessed that none of their patients needed help beyond what they could provide in the situation, two premature infants in the care of a neonatologist were not as lucky. The two ventilator, dependant babies needed to be evacuated as soon as possible. With no sign that rescue helicopters were on their way, it fell to Butler and two other orthopedists to get the infants safely through the flood water to a waiting rescue truck.

"We had heard that military helicopters were coming to evacuate everyone from the hospitals, but there had been no sign of them. Then, on one of our trips to gather supplies, a neonatologist stopped us and asked for our help in evacuating two premature infants,” Butler recalled. “I ended up sitting in the middle of the canoe so he could pass the bassinets over to me. He instructed me on how many breaths to deliver to them through hand ventilation. We were able to row each baby to safety one at a time.”

With little to no communication with the outside world, those in the hospitals could only wait for the help they had been promised. In such a chaotic situation, government help seemed as though it would never come. However, the fourth day after the hurricane, the private company that owns Tulane Hospital was able to rally its helicopters from across the nation and send help to the stranded patients and doctors.

Working like an assembly line, the physicians and nurses worked to transport the 400 patients in need of evacuation to the roof. Taking the most critical first, they navigated the stairs, while carrying patients, holding up IVs and hand ventilating those with breathing difficulties. They worked for two days, finally evacuating the last of the critical patients at dusk on the fifth day. Although many had been taken to safety, it looked as though the remaining people were out of luck.

“The helicopters were flown by private pilots who understandably wouldn’t fly at night because they were being shot at. It’s not like they were trained for that type of thing,” Butler explained. “We had realized that we were going to have to stay at least another night when suddenly, it seemed as though the sky filled up with helicopters. It was the military finally getting to us.”

That night, the rest of the patients and hospital personnel were flown to safety, allowing Butler to begin his trip to North Mississippi where his wife and children were waiting for him in Starkville.

“I knew I had to stay in New Orleans during the hurricane, but I sent my family to stay with my parents in Starkville,” Butler explained. “During the whole ordeal, I knew they were safe and my goal was just to get to them as quickly as possible.”

It took several days, but Butler finally arrived in Starkville and he was allowed to finish his residency at a hospital in Jackson. Displaced for nine months, he and his wife knew their home in New Orleans had been destroyed by the flood. However, he returned to Tulane’s campus to receive his degree and has made an effort to visit the city regularly throughout the recovery and rebuilding.

“We had always planned on returning to Starkville so I could open my own practice, the storm just altered our plans a little bit,” Butler said. “The flood waters reached about seven feet at our house in New Orleans. We had been in Louisiana for nearly ten years. It’s where our children were born and our memories are, but we had always planned on settling in Starkville. Everyone here was really great in making us feel at home and helping us settle into our new lives.”

Butler opened his Starkville orthopedic practice in 2006. Since returning to the area, he has been active in the biological engineering department, serving as both an adjunct professor and member of the advisory board. He recently was honored by the college by being named a Distinguished Fellow. Butler and his family still visit New Orleans as often as possible and work to intermingle its unique culture with their Bulldog lifestyle.

By: Susan Lassetter