Huey’s very close friends, Seymour Weiss and Conservation Commissioner Robert Maestri, had reached Baton Rouge some time prior to this. It is Mr. Weiss’s clear recollection that the decision to wait no longer before performing an emergency operation was reached “by all of us” before word was received of the mischance encountered by Drs. Maes and Rives. “As I recall the circumstances,” Seymour Weiss says, “Huey’s condition was getting worse by the minute. Dr. Vidrine insisted that any further delay was progressively lessening the Senator’s chances. The other physicians present agreed that the outlook was not hopeful. Vidrine was the physician in charge and the rest of us were laymen. The time came when we either had to agree to let the operation be performed at once, or take upon ourselves the risk of endangering the man’s life. Mrs. Long and the children had not yet reached Baton Rouge, but in view of the medical opinions, the rest of us--all being individuals who were close to Huey--were just about unanimous in agreeing that the doctors should proceed.” * * * * * Amid the almost inconceivable confusion in and out of the hospital, one person seems to have kept her head, and that was Miss Mary Ann Woods, now Mrs. Arthur Champagne, the supervisor of nurses. Assigning floor nurses and trainees to duties so as to make the best possible disposition of available personnel, she set out to provide four special attendants for the critically injured Senator, two to serve at night and two by day. The first one she called from the register was Theoda Carriere, who responded at once, even though she had just come off a twelve-hour tour of duty. The other three were Loretta Meade, Helen Selassie, and Mrs. Hamilton Baudin. Miss Carriere was one of the first to reach the hospital, as she lived nearby; and since by that time Senator Long had been taken from his third-floor sickroom to the operating theater on the floor above, she scrubbed up at once and reported for duty there. According to her recollection, Dr. Cook was working on the patient, who was anesthetized by the time she arrived. Being short of stature, she had difficulty in seeing the operating table, and therefore placed a stool so that, by standing on it, she could look over the shoulders of those surrounding the patient. Dr. Cook said to her: “This is a gunshot wound; get me some antitetanus serum.” Miss Carriere left the room for the pharmacy section downstairs where such supplies were stored, and when she returned with the desired serum, and gave it to Dr. Cook, Dr. Vidrine was just entering the operating room. “Dr. Cook looked up,” she relates, “and said: ‘Well, my relief has arrived,’ and left the operating room. Dr. Ben Chamberlain assisted Dr. Vidrine during the balance of the operation.”