WEBVTT - The Premonition 0:00:15.276 --> 0:00:26.556 Pushkin Hey against the rules. Listeners, this is Catherine Gerardo. 0:00:26.996 --> 0:00:29.276 I'm one of the producers on the show. We're hard 0:00:29.276 --> 0:00:34.316 at work on season three, which will come out this fall. Meanwhile, 0:00:34.716 --> 0:00:37.316 like most of us, our host Michael Lewis, spent a 0:00:37.356 --> 0:00:40.396 lot of the last year cowering in his home, trying 0:00:40.396 --> 0:00:43.236 to find solace in Netflix and take out from his 0:00:43.316 --> 0:00:47.116 local deli. But unlike most of us, he also wrote 0:00:47.116 --> 0:00:50.236 a book during the pandemic. He wanted to report on 0:00:50.276 --> 0:00:52.956 people who saw it coming and did their best to 0:00:53.076 --> 0:00:58.756 stop it. The book is called The Premonition, and we 0:00:58.876 --> 0:01:00.956 got him to read a chapter of it just for 0:01:01.036 --> 0:01:06.876 you a heads up. It contained some salty language and 0:01:06.956 --> 0:01:18.476 a somewhat graphic medical see Anyway, here's Michael The Premonition, 0:01:19.156 --> 0:01:24.036 Chapter one Dragon. By the time Charity heard about the 0:01:24.076 --> 0:01:26.716 young woman, it was too late to help. The woman 0:01:26.796 --> 0:01:29.356 was on life support in the Santa Barbara County Hospital. 0:01:29.996 --> 0:01:34.716 The doctors had just found tuberculosis in her brain. Before 0:01:34.716 --> 0:01:37.796 they could find anything more, she was dead and that 0:01:38.116 --> 0:01:41.596 was just the start of the problem. Doctor Charity Deane 0:01:41.636 --> 0:01:45.316 was the newly appointed chief Health Officer for Santa Barbara County. 0:01:46.236 --> 0:01:48.876 A health officer was a stopper of things, and the 0:01:48.916 --> 0:01:51.876 most important thing Charity was meant to stop, in her view, 0:01:52.316 --> 0:01:56.276 was people from giving diseases to their fellow citizens. Michael 0:01:56.396 --> 0:02:00.316 Bacterium tuberculosis moves through droplets in the breath of the 0:02:00.356 --> 0:02:03.156 infected person and is able to hang in the air 0:02:03.236 --> 0:02:06.756 for impressive stretches. The vast majority of the risk is 0:02:06.756 --> 0:02:09.676 in the first hour, but it may be there for two, 0:02:09.916 --> 0:02:13.316 three or four hours, said Charity. No one actually knows. 0:02:14.436 --> 0:02:18.836 That's Charity re enacting herself. There were other things about 0:02:18.876 --> 0:02:22.916 TB that no one knew. Some TB patients infected no one, 0:02:23.356 --> 0:02:27.596 and others infected huge numbers. No one knew why. No 0:02:27.636 --> 0:02:30.236 one knew why some people were super spreaders was at 0:02:30.276 --> 0:02:34.636 their behavior, their biology, the biology of their particular case 0:02:34.716 --> 0:02:39.676 of TB. The disease had been around basically forever. At 0:02:39.676 --> 0:02:42.236 the turn of the twentieth century, it was the leading 0:02:42.316 --> 0:02:45.876 killer of human beings and it remains in many ways 0:02:46.276 --> 0:02:51.196 a mystery. It's the most intriguing infectious disease, said Charity. 0:02:51.396 --> 0:02:54.956 My favorite infectious disease. It can do anything or be 0:02:55.036 --> 0:02:58.396 anywhere in the body. We've had TB of the uterus, 0:02:58.396 --> 0:03:02.716 of the eye, of the finger. Once in Niesare, she 0:03:02.796 --> 0:03:05.036 treated a man whose TB had started in his lungs, 0:03:05.556 --> 0:03:08.836 wormed its way through his chest wall, and finally oozed 0:03:08.876 --> 0:03:12.516 in hus down the side of its torso. To move 0:03:12.596 --> 0:03:16.356 from one person to another, however, TB needed to invade 0:03:16.356 --> 0:03:19.396 the lungs. The young woman in the Santa Barbara County 0:03:19.436 --> 0:03:22.796 Hospital had been diagnosed with tuberculosis of the brain, and 0:03:22.916 --> 0:03:26.036 had the bacteria confined itself to her brain, it would 0:03:26.076 --> 0:03:28.756 have threatened no one. If it had found its way 0:03:28.756 --> 0:03:32.396 into her lungs, it had the power to kill, and 0:03:32.476 --> 0:03:34.436 thirty percent of the people who had TB in their 0:03:34.436 --> 0:03:39.236 brain had it also in their lungs. Santa Barbara County 0:03:39.236 --> 0:03:42.916 had become almost famous, at least in disease control circles, 0:03:43.156 --> 0:03:47.076 for both the number and sheer terror of its tuberculosis cases. 0:03:47.836 --> 0:03:50.476 When people heard this, they didn't quite believe it. At 0:03:50.516 --> 0:03:53.556 first glance. The county was a tranquil eden of beige 0:03:53.636 --> 0:03:58.356 boulders and golden grass and California oaks. Oprah lived there, 0:03:58.996 --> 0:04:02.916 Ellen lived there. The great estates in the foothills overlooking 0:04:02.956 --> 0:04:05.516 the sea blended into one another to form a single 0:04:05.596 --> 0:04:12.156 tapestry of American affluence. Even the ocean felt private. But 0:04:12.276 --> 0:04:15.756 Santa Barbara County was both bigger and more complicated than 0:04:15.796 --> 0:04:19.156 it seemed. It had the highest rate of child poverty 0:04:19.156 --> 0:04:22.796 in the state. It sheltered maybe fifty thousand non citizens 0:04:22.796 --> 0:04:26.236 in abject squalor plus. All hell could break loose at 0:04:26.236 --> 0:04:30.636 any time. Wildfires and mudslides and oil spills and mass 0:04:30.676 --> 0:04:35.316 shootings scratched the surface of paradise, and you were plunged 0:04:35.796 --> 0:04:39.956 into the book of job. The chief health officer of 0:04:39.996 --> 0:04:43.116 Santa Barbara County never knew exactly where, or when or 0:04:43.196 --> 0:04:47.276 how the next TB outbreak might occur. The young woman 0:04:47.276 --> 0:04:49.996 who just died in the county hospital illustrated the point. 0:04:50.916 --> 0:04:54.556 No one had any idea she even had tuberculosis until 0:04:54.596 --> 0:04:58.596 she was on her deathbed. She'd had a husband and children, 0:04:59.116 --> 0:05:02.476 She'd lived in a crowded neighborhood. She'd worked inside a 0:05:02.516 --> 0:05:07.156 massive open plan office alongside three hundred other people. If 0:05:07.156 --> 0:05:10.716 the TB had reached her lungs, anyone should been anywhere 0:05:10.796 --> 0:05:14.596 near was now in mortal danger. That was Charity Deane's 0:05:14.636 --> 0:05:17.916 immediate problem. To figure out who, if any one, might 0:05:17.956 --> 0:05:21.276 be infected. She'd need to test tissue from the woman's lung. 0:05:21.996 --> 0:05:24.876 If the test came out positive, she need to call 0:05:24.956 --> 0:05:28.076 the company that employed the young woman and shut it 0:05:28.116 --> 0:05:31.276 down for long enough to test all three hundred of 0:05:31.276 --> 0:05:35.956 its employees, along with anyone they might have infected, along 0:05:35.996 --> 0:05:39.156 with anyone they might have infected, and on and on. 0:05:40.236 --> 0:05:42.836 In short, she might need to alert and alarm a 0:05:42.876 --> 0:05:46.476 big chunk of Santa Barbara County. But who was she? 0:05:47.836 --> 0:05:51.796 A nobody. Hardly any one in Santa Barbara County knew 0:05:51.796 --> 0:05:54.756 who she was or what she did all day She 0:05:54.836 --> 0:05:59.596 was invisible. Three years earlier, in two thousand and eleven, 0:05:59.956 --> 0:06:02.036 Charity had been a thirty two year old resident in 0:06:02.076 --> 0:06:05.396 internal medicine, pregnant for the third time in five years, 0:06:05.996 --> 0:06:08.436 when the Santa Barbara County medical director had asked her 0:06:08.436 --> 0:06:10.476 if she consider feeling an opening he had for a 0:06:10.516 --> 0:06:15.156 deputy health officer. The county required its health officers to 0:06:15.196 --> 0:06:19.196 possess both a medical degree and a master's in public health, 0:06:19.996 --> 0:06:24.436 and she had both. He also mentioned in passing, but 0:06:24.476 --> 0:06:27.156 so that Charity heard it loud and clear that the 0:06:27.236 --> 0:06:29.996 luxury she had of being married to a rich surgeon 0:06:30.636 --> 0:06:34.356 meant that she could afford to take the job. The 0:06:34.476 --> 0:06:36.876 job had no obvious appeal, at least to a normal 0:06:36.956 --> 0:06:39.556 young doctor. It paid a third of what she could 0:06:39.596 --> 0:06:42.036 earn starting out in the private practices that had already 0:06:42.076 --> 0:06:44.876 asked her to work for them. Doctors of Santa Barbara 0:06:44.996 --> 0:06:49.156 already referred to themselves as the working poor. Being a 0:06:49.196 --> 0:06:52.236 doctor in Santa Barbara without being paid like one, well, 0:06:53.076 --> 0:06:56.836 that was insane. Everyone tried to talk me out of it, 0:06:56.836 --> 0:06:59.996 said Charity. People couldn't believe it. They were like, you 0:07:00.036 --> 0:07:02.956 aren't seriously thinking of going to work for the county. 0:07:03.796 --> 0:07:05.276 They thought it meant that I was going to be 0:07:05.316 --> 0:07:08.236 a doctor down in the shiitthole basement of the County Clinic. 0:07:09.236 --> 0:07:11.836 The County clinic was where poor people without health insurance 0:07:11.836 --> 0:07:15.996 went for treatment. It was housed inside a decrepit facility 0:07:15.996 --> 0:07:19.396 erected a century earlier on the outskirts of Santa Barbara 0:07:19.476 --> 0:07:24.716 as a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients. Charity still found herself 0:07:24.836 --> 0:07:28.036 drawn to the job. I couldn't figure out why my 0:07:28.196 --> 0:07:32.236 heart strings were tugged. The medical director handed her a 0:07:32.276 --> 0:07:36.356 thick binder whose pages described the job in detail. The 0:07:36.476 --> 0:07:40.836 Health Officers Authority in California it was called She read 0:07:40.876 --> 0:07:45.516 it closely. Health officers in California, like health officers across 0:07:45.516 --> 0:07:47.556 the United States and the rest of the free world, 0:07:47.876 --> 0:07:52.236 had a long list of responsibilities registering births and deaths, 0:07:52.996 --> 0:07:58.316 inspecting restaurants, counting bacteria in ocean water and swimming pools, 0:07:59.116 --> 0:08:05.076 managing chronic disease. None of that really interested her. Then 0:08:05.116 --> 0:08:09.556 she saw the phrase communicable disease controller. It was an 0:08:09.596 --> 0:08:14.276 official state role played by local health officers. Her mind 0:08:14.796 --> 0:08:18.996 lit up. I don't really care about obesity or diabetes. 0:08:19.316 --> 0:08:22.276 I actually don't give a shit about chronic disease. What 0:08:22.436 --> 0:08:26.876 I like is a crisis. What she more than liked 0:08:26.916 --> 0:08:28.636 was the kind of crisis that might be created by 0:08:28.676 --> 0:08:33.236 a communicable disease. She knew it sounded odd, but she 0:08:33.276 --> 0:08:35.876 had been consumed by this interest since she was a 0:08:35.916 --> 0:08:41.796 small child. Disease had shaped history, disease had crippled societies, 0:08:42.116 --> 0:08:44.556 but that's not why, at the age of seven, she'd 0:08:44.556 --> 0:08:47.916 become obsessed with it. It was gruesome death, it was 0:08:47.956 --> 0:08:53.516 the human powerlessness over it. In middle school, she'd created 0:08:53.556 --> 0:08:57.196 styrofoam models of viruses and hung them from her bedroom ceiling, 0:08:57.956 --> 0:09:01.556 just so I could stare at them and think about them. 0:09:01.636 --> 0:09:04.516 She taught herself French so that when the time came 0:09:04.556 --> 0:09:07.636 to move to West Africa to chase disease, as she 0:09:07.716 --> 0:09:11.356 assumed she one day would do, she'd have the ability 0:09:11.356 --> 0:09:16.596 to communicate. In college, as a microbiology major, she stay 0:09:16.676 --> 0:09:20.236 up late reading about yellow fever, tuberculosis in Spanish flu. 0:09:21.076 --> 0:09:24.396 My favorite microbes in college were the human pathogens that 0:09:24.476 --> 0:09:28.916 caused horrific disease, she recalled. I mean, nobody cares about 0:09:28.956 --> 0:09:33.596 plant viruses. In medical school at Tulane University, she'd ignored 0:09:33.636 --> 0:09:36.276 the derision of her fellow doctors and studied at the 0:09:36.316 --> 0:09:39.476 same time for a master's degree in public health, but 0:09:39.596 --> 0:09:43.476 only because Tulane unusually offered a degree with a focus 0:09:43.516 --> 0:09:47.156 on tropical disease. After that, she'd gone to Gabone and 0:09:47.236 --> 0:09:49.836 Niger to work as a doctor, in part because the 0:09:49.916 --> 0:09:52.836 odds seemed to her pretty good that whatever disease was 0:09:52.876 --> 0:09:56.076 going to replicate the destruction of past plagues would come 0:09:56.116 --> 0:10:01.436 from Africa. She knew that her obsession with pandemic disease 0:10:01.516 --> 0:10:05.116 was unusual, even off putting. I learned not to talk 0:10:05.116 --> 0:10:08.036 about it because when I talked about it, people thought 0:10:08.076 --> 0:10:11.036 I was crazy. But the fact remained that from a 0:10:11.116 --> 0:10:13.676 very young age, when she was feeling low, she had 0:10:13.756 --> 0:10:17.436 cheered herself up by reading books on bubonic plague. The 0:10:17.476 --> 0:10:22.436 ones with the grisly drawings she liked best. She read 0:10:22.516 --> 0:10:24.716 more of the fine print in the binder describing the 0:10:24.796 --> 0:10:28.756 role of the local public health officer. One sentence struck 0:10:28.756 --> 0:10:33.116 her as more important than all the others combined. Quote 0:10:33.156 --> 0:10:37.236 Each health officer, knowing or having reason to believe that 0:10:37.476 --> 0:10:40.716 any case of the diseases made reportable by regulation of 0:10:40.716 --> 0:10:46.076 the department, or any other contagious, infectious, or communicable disease 0:10:46.196 --> 0:10:50.876 exists or has recently existed within the territory under his 0:10:51.116 --> 0:10:55.476 or her jurisdiction, shall take measures as may be necessary 0:10:55.516 --> 0:10:58.916 to prevent the spread of the disease or occurrence of 0:10:58.956 --> 0:11:05.156 additional cases, to minimize horrific death, and to chase disease. 0:11:05.356 --> 0:11:08.356 The State of California had bestowed upon local public health 0:11:08.356 --> 0:11:14.716 officers extraordinary legal powers. Charity accepted the job. She typed 0:11:14.716 --> 0:11:17.196 out that one sentence of law and taped to the 0:11:17.276 --> 0:11:21.636 wall of her new office. Once a t B quarantine room, 0:11:21.796 --> 0:11:24.236 her office still had the original grates in the wall 0:11:24.396 --> 0:11:26.956 used to get fresh sea air into the patient's lungs. 0:11:27.956 --> 0:11:30.876 Sitting at her desk in Building four, she could hear 0:11:30.916 --> 0:11:34.156 the screams of the psychiatric patients from across the courtyard 0:11:34.316 --> 0:11:39.036 in Building three. In the halls, cabinets as old as 0:11:39.076 --> 0:11:43.756 the building stored medical instruments that belonged in a museum. 0:11:43.876 --> 0:11:46.396 The stairs led to a dank tunnel under the building 0:11:46.796 --> 0:11:49.996 that went to the old morgue. It was her kind 0:11:49.996 --> 0:11:59.636 of place. She had, in theory, incredible legal powers to 0:11:59.676 --> 0:12:03.996 prevent disease. She soon realized how few people in practice 0:12:04.716 --> 0:12:08.676 knew the law. Most to the citizens of Santa Barbara, 0:12:09.276 --> 0:12:13.116 including nearly all of the public officials, didn't even really 0:12:13.236 --> 0:12:15.876 understand what a public health officer was supposed to do. 0:12:16.876 --> 0:12:18.796 The public health officer had somehow come to be a 0:12:18.836 --> 0:12:24.036 recessive character. The other officials and the public expected her 0:12:24.076 --> 0:12:27.236 to lie low until called upon, usually to make some 0:12:27.316 --> 0:12:33.436 brief ceremonial appearance. The law's words felt strong, but their 0:12:33.556 --> 0:12:37.396 spirit felt weak. By her second year on the job, 0:12:37.996 --> 0:12:40.596 she found herself quoting the laws so often that she 0:12:40.676 --> 0:12:43.196 asked her assistant to laminate a copy of that one 0:12:43.276 --> 0:12:45.916 passage so that she might carry it with her in 0:12:45.916 --> 0:12:49.676 her briefcase. I'm in a meeting, trying to explain to 0:12:49.756 --> 0:12:52.716 people that I actually do have the authority to do 0:12:52.916 --> 0:12:55.836 something I need to do. She said, I really tried 0:12:55.956 --> 0:12:58.596 hard not to whip it out, but I pulled it 0:12:58.596 --> 0:13:01.276 out once a week. By the time she got the 0:13:01.316 --> 0:13:03.916 call about the young woman with tuberculosis in her brain, 0:13:04.076 --> 0:13:06.596 she'd read that one sentence aloud more than just about 0:13:06.636 --> 0:13:10.636 any other in her life. Lines weren't as easily performed 0:13:10.676 --> 0:13:13.556 to say, the verses of the twenty third Psalm, which 0:13:13.556 --> 0:13:17.436 she also loved, but she could bring them equally to life. 0:13:17.956 --> 0:13:20.796 Each health officer, knowing or having reason to believe what 0:13:20.876 --> 0:13:23.236 does that mean, should cry and point her finger in 0:13:23.236 --> 0:13:27.556 the air. It means suspicion. You only need to suspect 0:13:27.756 --> 0:13:30.956 that any case of the diseases made reportable by regulation 0:13:30.996 --> 0:13:34.676 of the department, or any other contagious, infectious or communicable 0:13:34.716 --> 0:13:38.476 disease exists or has recently existed within the territory under 0:13:38.516 --> 0:13:42.476 his or her jurisdiction. Any disease should cry and then 0:13:42.516 --> 0:13:46.596 parse the adjectives. Contagious isn't really a medical term, so 0:13:46.756 --> 0:13:49.436 ignore that they just tossed in the kitchen sink there. 0:13:49.876 --> 0:13:54.196 But you really need to understand the distinction between infectious 0:13:54.316 --> 0:14:00.276 and communicable. All communicable diseases were infectious, but some infectious 0:14:00.316 --> 0:14:04.796 diseases were not communicable. Communicable men a person could give 0:14:04.836 --> 0:14:08.876 it to another person. You could get lyme disease, for instance, 0:14:09.116 --> 0:14:12.836 but you couldn't give it to somebody else. Communicable diseases 0:14:12.956 --> 0:14:17.676 were the diseases that created crises. In an adjective, she'd 0:14:17.676 --> 0:14:21.876 found a vessel for her life's purpose. Shall take measures 0:14:21.876 --> 0:14:24.396 as may be necessary to prevent the spread of the 0:14:24.436 --> 0:14:29.076 disease or occurrence of additional cases, Shall, She'd exclaim, not 0:14:29.236 --> 0:14:33.916 a may A shall not think about it, not consider it, 0:14:34.036 --> 0:14:35.916 not maybe get around to it one day. If you 0:14:35.956 --> 0:14:40.116 feel like it, it's your duty. If you suspect disease, 0:14:40.396 --> 0:14:43.836 you can do whatever the hell you want. Now. She 0:14:43.916 --> 0:14:46.516 had a corpse with TB in a hospital and hours 0:14:46.596 --> 0:14:49.596 drive north. She'd ask them to move the body to 0:14:49.596 --> 0:14:52.956 the Santa Barbara Coroner's office, then call the coroner to 0:14:53.036 --> 0:14:55.876 ask him to send her a sample of the lung tissue. 0:14:56.396 --> 0:14:59.796 That's when the real problem started. At first, he wouldn't 0:14:59.796 --> 0:15:03.956 even come to the phone. Once she'd telephone him into submission, 0:15:03.956 --> 0:15:07.236 and he finally picked up. He simply refused to do it. 0:15:08.236 --> 0:15:10.996 Yet the law was the coroner was meant to do 0:15:11.116 --> 0:15:15.396 with any corpse whatever she told him to do. Instead, 0:15:15.436 --> 0:15:19.676 he explained to her why he wouldn't. To her growing incredulity, 0:15:19.716 --> 0:15:22.996 this seventy something coroner, who had contracted with the county 0:15:22.996 --> 0:15:25.836 to work part time and who clearly had only the 0:15:25.916 --> 0:15:29.276 vaguest idea of what he was talking about, began to 0:15:29.396 --> 0:15:33.716 lecture her about tuberculosis, saying that it was both dangerous 0:15:33.716 --> 0:15:37.356 and unnecessary to extract the young woman's lung, citing some 0:15:37.436 --> 0:15:40.276 study that purported to show that TB in a corpse 0:15:40.316 --> 0:15:44.796 subjected to surgery could become aerosolized and infect the surgeon. 0:15:45.716 --> 0:15:48.636 Charity Deane was at this point the chief health officer 0:15:48.676 --> 0:15:52.356 of Santa Barbara County. She was the youngest chief health 0:15:52.396 --> 0:15:55.476 officer in the history of California. She'd also spent three 0:15:55.556 --> 0:15:59.676 years running the county's TB clinic. She was legally responsible 0:15:59.756 --> 0:16:03.076 for every single case of TB in the county. Fancy 0:16:03.156 --> 0:16:06.716 doctors who had supervised her residency now called her to 0:16:06.756 --> 0:16:10.476 ask for advice about the disease, for crying out loud. 0:16:10.796 --> 0:16:13.916 She was about to be named president of the Tuberculosis 0:16:13.956 --> 0:16:19.356 Controllers Association of the entire State of California. She tried 0:16:19.396 --> 0:16:21.676 to be civil with the old coroner, but it was hard. 0:16:22.076 --> 0:16:24.876 I knew the study, it was a bullshit study, but 0:16:24.956 --> 0:16:27.316 the douchebag said he wouldn't do it, would not even 0:16:27.356 --> 0:16:30.156 allow someone else to come into his office and do it. 0:16:30.956 --> 0:16:34.236 She hung up and called the sheriff. She explained the 0:16:34.276 --> 0:16:37.876 situation sweetly and asked the sheriff to require the coroner 0:16:37.916 --> 0:16:40.236 to cut the young woman open and extract her lung. 0:16:40.876 --> 0:16:43.476 The sheriff didn't know the law either, it seemed as 0:16:43.476 --> 0:16:47.036 he said he wouldn't interfere with the coroner's authority, at 0:16:47.076 --> 0:16:51.156 which point Charity lost her patience. I couldn't believe he 0:16:51.196 --> 0:16:53.916 wasn't doing what I told him to do. She wrote 0:16:53.916 --> 0:16:56.156 out a legal order and delivered it to the sheriff 0:16:56.196 --> 0:16:58.996 in person. Then I waited for the phones to blow up. 0:17:01.156 --> 0:17:04.756 The sheriff couldn't simply ignore a legal order. He phoned 0:17:04.836 --> 0:17:07.756 up the Chief council for the Board of Supervisors to 0:17:07.796 --> 0:17:10.796 confirm his belief that a legal order issued by a 0:17:10.876 --> 0:17:15.396 local public health officer carried no authority. Santa Barbara's Chief 0:17:15.396 --> 0:17:18.476 Council looked into it, and to his surprise, discovered that 0:17:18.516 --> 0:17:22.556 the sheriff was mistaken. The woman was right. The only 0:17:22.596 --> 0:17:25.876 person whose authority trumped the health officers in cases involving 0:17:25.916 --> 0:17:30.156 disease was the governor of California, and then only if 0:17:30.156 --> 0:17:37.436 the governor had declared a state of emergency. With that, 0:17:37.836 --> 0:17:41.316 Charity considered the matter settled, but the coroner's office called 0:17:41.316 --> 0:17:45.196 her the next day to say that it wasn't. They said, okay, 0:17:45.316 --> 0:17:47.996 we'll do it, she recalled, but we won't do it 0:17:48.036 --> 0:17:51.716 inside the office because the building's old and lacks proper ventilation. 0:17:52.396 --> 0:17:57.356 I said, okay, could you do it outside? They said, okay, 0:17:57.556 --> 0:18:00.636 but only if you are here. Not for the first time, 0:18:00.676 --> 0:18:03.076 she wondered what would happen in Santa Barbara County if 0:18:03.116 --> 0:18:06.916 there was ever a serious outbreak of communicable disease. They 0:18:06.916 --> 0:18:09.716 won't even do an autopsy because there are worried about 0:18:09.716 --> 0:18:12.756 arioslised TV. She said, what the fuck are they going 0:18:12.796 --> 0:18:16.596 to do if it's arioslis ebola. It didn't help that 0:18:16.676 --> 0:18:19.956 this was all going down over Christmas. She just turned 0:18:19.996 --> 0:18:22.876 thirty seven, was newly divorced from the rich surgeon, and 0:18:22.996 --> 0:18:25.916 was a single mother to three young boys. As she 0:18:26.036 --> 0:18:28.396 drove to the County Morgue on the day after Christmas, 0:18:28.996 --> 0:18:32.196 she was unsure what awaited her. She sensed that the 0:18:32.276 --> 0:18:34.636 coroner and the sheriff and maybe some other people had 0:18:34.636 --> 0:18:38.596 grown irritated with her. Just how irritated became clear only 0:18:38.636 --> 0:18:42.596 as she rolled into the parking lot beside the Coroner's office. 0:18:44.916 --> 0:18:48.476 Seven people were waiting for her. Outside the morgue, all men, 0:18:49.236 --> 0:18:51.556 the coroner, the sheriff, and a bunch of his deputies. 0:18:52.116 --> 0:18:54.916 They had clearly come for the show. She'd driven straight 0:18:54.916 --> 0:18:56.716 from cleaning up the mess under the tree, and so 0:18:56.756 --> 0:19:00.036 she wasn't in her usual battle armor of Talbot's suit, 0:19:00.356 --> 0:19:04.356 pencil skirt and grandma heels, just attacky Christmas sweater and 0:19:04.356 --> 0:19:08.036 blue jeans. All the men wore full on hazmat suits. 0:19:08.596 --> 0:19:10.956 They look like they're about to walk on the moon, 0:19:11.276 --> 0:19:15.956 the whole team. You'd have thought this wuzzy bullet. The 0:19:16.036 --> 0:19:19.076 morgue itself was even more appalling than the public health office. 0:19:19.876 --> 0:19:22.796 Poking up from scrub oaks and dirt fields. It resembled 0:19:22.836 --> 0:19:25.236 more of the bathrooms at a highway rest stop than 0:19:25.276 --> 0:19:28.436 an official public office. Not for the first time, she 0:19:28.556 --> 0:19:31.556 wondered where they put the bodies. If ever, there were 0:19:31.556 --> 0:19:35.156 lots of gruesome deaths at once. At some remove on 0:19:35.156 --> 0:19:37.516 a picnic table lay a body bag with the young 0:19:37.556 --> 0:19:41.796 woman inside. The coroner was now just angry. He explained 0:19:41.796 --> 0:19:45.036 all over again that the entire operation was unsafe and 0:19:45.076 --> 0:19:47.716 that he was not going to risk opening up the 0:19:47.836 --> 0:19:52.316 body indoors. He sighted the bullshit paper again, this time 0:19:52.356 --> 0:19:55.476 to explain why he hadn't even brought his bonesaw with him, 0:19:55.836 --> 0:19:59.236 as the one known case of a surgeon becoming infected 0:19:59.236 --> 0:20:02.236 with TB by a corpse had involved a bone saw. 0:20:02.876 --> 0:20:05.396 Instead of the bone saw, he had brought along a 0:20:05.436 --> 0:20:11.316 pair of garden shears. Now he offered to her garden shears. 0:20:12.516 --> 0:20:15.836 They were brand new in Gleaming, with the word Ace 0:20:16.356 --> 0:20:19.996 on the red handles for the hardware store. If the 0:20:19.996 --> 0:20:22.396 new chief health officer wanted to cut open the young 0:20:22.436 --> 0:20:25.276 woman and remove a piece of her lung, she'd need 0:20:25.276 --> 0:20:29.356 to do it herself with garden shears. I had thought 0:20:29.356 --> 0:20:32.036 I was just there to watch, said Charity, and he 0:20:32.196 --> 0:20:35.876 turned it into a game of chicken. Medicine had always 0:20:35.876 --> 0:20:39.036 felt to her a man's world, especially in the places 0:20:39.156 --> 0:20:43.156 like here where it touched government. It was then charity. 0:20:43.196 --> 0:20:47.316 Deane realized, the real problem is that this man is frightened. 0:20:47.956 --> 0:20:50.756 She'd been around terrifying diseases most of her adult life, 0:20:51.036 --> 0:20:53.836 and it made a pact with herself not to fear them. 0:20:54.556 --> 0:20:56.836 If you're a truck driver, you know you're going to 0:20:56.916 --> 0:21:00.196 get into an accident sooner or later, so you just 0:21:00.356 --> 0:21:02.676 learn what to do if you are in an accident. 0:21:02.956 --> 0:21:05.996 She said. That's how you get over the fear. You 0:21:06.076 --> 0:21:09.396 just accept that you'll get the disease one day. Men 0:21:09.436 --> 0:21:12.676 weren't so accepting. She'd noticed, especially the big and supposedly 0:21:12.716 --> 0:21:15.916 brave ones. As a medical student, she'd seen the fear 0:21:16.076 --> 0:21:18.116 in the eyes of the New Orleans cops in the 0:21:18.156 --> 0:21:21.516 trauma center. They'd haul in some guy with a gunshot wound, 0:21:21.676 --> 0:21:24.316 but when they found out he had HEPSI or HIV, 0:21:24.996 --> 0:21:27.596 they'd squeal and go take a shower in chlorox from 0:21:27.636 --> 0:21:31.556 head to toe. Over and again. She's seen mesomorphs with 0:21:31.596 --> 0:21:34.116 crew cuts who'd happily run into a burning building to 0:21:34.116 --> 0:21:37.556 save a dog turn uncertain and uneasy in the presence 0:21:37.596 --> 0:21:41.756 of disease. Airborne diseases in particular seemed to spook them. 0:21:42.076 --> 0:21:44.756 That was the number one reason I could not get 0:21:44.836 --> 0:21:47.996 t be patients arrested. She said, the police would turn 0:21:48.036 --> 0:21:50.956 into these squeamish little girls. They'd sit in the car 0:21:51.076 --> 0:21:54.636 and let a nurse go get them. Charity was not 0:21:54.716 --> 0:21:58.916 without her own fears, both real and imagined. The walls 0:21:58.956 --> 0:22:01.636 of her office and home bedroom were plastered with post 0:22:01.676 --> 0:22:06.356 it notes, there is no shortcut to courage. Courage is 0:22:06.396 --> 0:22:09.396 a muscle memory. The tallest oak in the forest was 0:22:09.436 --> 0:22:12.876 once just a little nut that held its ground. Like 0:22:13.036 --> 0:22:16.916 most everyone else, she needed reminding. Unlike most everyone else. 0:22:17.396 --> 0:22:23.396 She reminded herself constantly. Her realization that the men outside 0:22:23.436 --> 0:22:25.556 the coroner's office were afraid in a way that she 0:22:25.676 --> 0:22:29.076 was not led to a thought, they don't think I'm 0:22:29.076 --> 0:22:32.756 going to go through with this, Then another, they don't 0:22:32.796 --> 0:22:35.076 think I will do it because I don't look like 0:22:35.156 --> 0:22:38.356 a person who would do it. Even in heel. She 0:22:38.476 --> 0:22:41.276 was only five foot six and slender. She had mixed 0:22:41.316 --> 0:22:43.636 feelings about her own looks, but men did not appear 0:22:43.676 --> 0:22:47.356 to share them. She'd gotten used to cat calls. She 0:22:47.516 --> 0:22:50.916 created a rule for herself when entering a meeting with 0:22:50.956 --> 0:22:54.556 a certain kind of mail, allow a thirty second recovery 0:22:54.596 --> 0:22:58.596 period before attempting to convey information upon which that mail 0:22:58.756 --> 0:23:02.836 might need to act. Men judge her by appearance and 0:23:02.916 --> 0:23:07.156 were badly deceived. The inside doesn't match the outside, she 0:23:07.316 --> 0:23:10.716 sometimes said of herself. She unzipped the body bag and 0:23:10.796 --> 0:23:14.036 looked at the corpse. A bone saw would have allowed 0:23:14.036 --> 0:23:15.676 her to cut right down the middle of the young 0:23:15.716 --> 0:23:18.716 woman's sternam, but with garden shears, she'd have to snap 0:23:18.716 --> 0:23:21.796 the ribs at the ends. She felt for the edge 0:23:21.796 --> 0:23:26.076 of the first rib snip. It was a sharp, thin sound, 0:23:26.356 --> 0:23:31.316 like a crab shell cracking snip. As she cut, she 0:23:31.436 --> 0:23:36.236 sensed the eyes inside the hazmat suits looking away. They 0:23:36.236 --> 0:23:38.836 had left the young woman's face uncovered. That was the 0:23:38.876 --> 0:23:42.636 most unsettling part. Normally, a surgeon saw only the tiny 0:23:42.676 --> 0:23:46.596 patch of flesh upon which she operated. The sight of 0:23:46.636 --> 0:23:51.436 the young woman's face made the operation feel personal, disturbing. 0:23:52.396 --> 0:23:55.956 She felt woozy and nauseous. I was just saying over 0:23:55.996 --> 0:23:59.836 and over in my head, don't faint, don't faint. And 0:24:00.036 --> 0:24:03.276 I was mad. This was such disrespect for her and 0:24:03.356 --> 0:24:06.196 for her family. But they were like, you want to 0:24:06.236 --> 0:24:11.276 see it, you get to do it. Snip. The crab 0:24:11.316 --> 0:24:14.876 shell finally cracked. She tossed the garden shears to one 0:24:14.876 --> 0:24:17.316 side of the body and pulled apart the woman's ribs. 0:24:18.116 --> 0:24:21.076 At that moment, I had this feeling, this feeling of 0:24:21.116 --> 0:24:25.716 such grief for her husband. She didn't show any feeling 0:24:25.716 --> 0:24:27.876 at all to the men, though she didn't want to 0:24:27.876 --> 0:24:31.276 give the douchebag the satisfaction. She needed a chunk of 0:24:31.356 --> 0:24:33.596 the woman's lung tissue to take back to Manny in 0:24:33.636 --> 0:24:36.636 the lab for testing. But as she reached into the 0:24:36.636 --> 0:24:40.156 woman with the garden shears, the coroner reached in too. 0:24:41.036 --> 0:24:45.236 He wanted to help. Should we look in her belly, 0:24:45.356 --> 0:24:48.636 he asked gently, Right, thought, Charity. If it was in 0:24:48.716 --> 0:24:51.076 her belly, then it was in her blood. And if 0:24:51.116 --> 0:24:53.836 it was in her blood, it was probably on her 0:24:53.916 --> 0:24:59.196 lung She felt around for signs of tuberculosis. Her internal 0:24:59.276 --> 0:25:03.356 organs were perfect, lovely. If the lungs were speckled and bumpy, 0:25:03.556 --> 0:25:08.716 I would know, and they weren't. Her hands, sensed with 0:25:08.796 --> 0:25:12.156