OCTOBER 2005

SLIDELL ROOFTOP RESCUE
The first widely publicized post-Katrina animal rescue was managed as a Labor Day photo op for Sahara star Matthew McConaughey.

McConaughey helped to evacuate anesthesiologist James Riopell, 50 dogs, 18 cats, and two hamsters from the roof of the Lindy Boggs Medical Center in Slidell, Louisiana, isolated for a week by high water.

“A day before McConaughey’s mercy mission,” a press release recounted, “another helicopter trying to rescue the animals and their guardian crashed outside the hospital.”

While awaiting rescue, “The doctor euthanized some animals at the request of their owners, who feared they would be abandoned and starve. He made a small gas chamber out of a plastic-wrapped dog kennel,” wrote Mike Stobbe of Associated Press.

“The bigger dogs were fighting it. When I saw that, I said ‘I can’t do it,’” said Lorne Bennett. His wife Valerie Bennett had offered boat rescuers her wedding ring and her mother’s wedding ring to save their four dogs, Stobbe reported. They were eventually among the saved.

McConaughey and Riopell were featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show––but other rescuers were still kept out of the disaster zone by police and the National Guard. A Noah’s Wish team had been awaiting the go-ahead right there in Slidell since August 29, according to Kim Campbell Thornton of Newsweek. After authorization came, the Noah’s Wish team, assisted by volunteers from the House Rabbit Society, reportedly took in 269 animals in five days.

Winfrey later paid for newspaper ads to help direct displaced people to Petfinder.com to look for their lost pets, Louisiana SPCA executive director Laura Maloney told Tribune Media Services correspondent Steve Dale.