Ben is chief of the intensive care unit at Charity Hospital, one of New Orleans' only two public hospitals, which serve the city's poorest and uninsured patients. When the power fails, the temperature soon exceeds 100 degrees, and nurses and family members manually operate respirators and work by flashlight to carry patients up to higher floors of the hospital to escape the filthy water flooding their buildings. The media reports that Charity Hospital has been evacuated, but it's not true. He and his staff are faced with keeping 11 critically ill patients alive under desperate circumstances. Even as their rescue is imminent, de Boisblanc faces another challenge: saving the life of a 23-year-old male patient, Hunter Reeves, by performing open chest surgery without sedation or anesthesia and with only a flashlight as his light source.

Since the Hurricane: Charity Hospital is still closed.