I don’t know what provisions my state of birth has for honoring members of the California National Guard, but this makes me proud to be a Californian. Hell, I’ll even stop talking smack about Orange County.

The National Guard team of searchers was about to call in a “DB,” or dead body, at 1927 Lopez St. in the Broadmoor district when Lt. Frederick Fell decided to investigate.

In the past few days, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has ordered searchers not to break into homes. They are supposed to look in through a window and knock on the door. If no one cries out for help, they are supposed to move on. If they see a body, they are supposed to log the address and move on.

The morticians will remove the deceased later.

But Fell broke the rules and ordered his men to bash open the door, launching a series of events that would save a man's life and revitalize California Task Force 5 from Orange County. In the past two days, the 80-member task force had identified seven dead bodies in the same neighborhood, and they had rescued no one.

But Tuesday, 16 days after Hurricane Katrina smacked this aging community in the face, an unconscious and emaciated man identified as Edgar Hollingsworth, 74, was rescued. The man is expected to survive.

 . . . When they crashed through the door, Hollingsworth didn't move. But he was breathing.

National Guard medics draped an IV bag over his ceiling fan, but his veins were too weak to support the needle. They pulled him out of the house and laid him on the sidewalk. He looked as if he weighed less than 80 pounds.

Task Force 5 sent a team that included Dr. Peter Czuleger, an emergency-room doctor at Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo, to the scene. Czuleger didn’t have the proper equipment, so he improvised, using a short needle to pierce the vein under Hollingsworth's clavicle.

“It’s like trying to climb into a third-story window with a stepladder,“ Czuleger said.

Once the IV was in place, medics were able to pump 2 liters of saline solution into the man.

The hospital attendants hadn’t expected to see a survivor 16 days after the storm.

“They were surprised at the hospital that anyone in his condition would still be alive,” Czuleger said. “In 24 hours, he would have been dead.“

— “Survivor rescued 16 days after the hurricane”, Orange County Register (Registration required, but Bugmenot has them on file.)