ST. FRANCISVILLE, La.-- Evacuating a Louisiana nursing home before Hurricane Katrina would have prevented some of the 35 patient deaths in the floods that ensued, the facility's former medical director testified on Tuesday.

Tim Mueller / Associated Press

Salvador and Mabel Mangano leave court with defense attorney James Cobb, right. The Manganos are owners of St. Rita's nursing home in St. Bernard Parish where 35 patients died in flooding that followed Hurricane Katrina.

Dr. Joe Johnson, medical director at St. Rita's nursing home when Katrina hit in 2005, testified in the negligent homicide trial of Salvador and Mabel Mangano, husband-and-wife owners of the facility south of New Orleans. Prosecutors argue that the Manganos caused the patients' deaths by failing to evacuate them.

Johnson said a majority of St. Rita's 59 patients would have survived an evacuation "as long as they're hydrated and they've got somebody there to take care of them."

"The majority of them should be able to survive," Johnson said.

Johnson acknowledged that transporting the aged, ailing patients could have put them in danger, because of their frailty. He said the Manganos did not consult with him before deciding against moving the patients away from the storm in the days leading up to Katrina's landfall on Aug. 29, 2005.

Defense lawyer James Cobb said Johnson's comments amounted to "Monday morning quarterbacking."

Cobb argued that the patients were too frail to be transported, and that loading them onto buses would have put them in greater peril than keeping them at the home. Cobb recalled that highways were clogged with people driving north. Evacuating north to Baton Rouge -- normally a two-hour drive -- could have taken up to seven hours, he said.

Cobb read from a survey of the patients, compiled several months before the storm: five were bedridden, 45 restricted to wheelchairs, 30 demented or senile, and 48 could not bathe themselves without assistance.

Johnson, the primary care physician for about two dozen of the patients, responded: "I would agree that there is risk associated with" evacuating such people.

Cobb questioned why Johnson didn't contact St. Rita's as Katrina approached, to give his opinion on the question of evacuation.

Johnson said his position centered on patients' health, not decision-making in weather emergencies. Without naming the Manganos, he said the nursing home had the responsibility of making evacuation decisions.

"Usually, these decisions are administrative," Johnson said.

Prosecutors with the state Attorney General's office also called Evelyn Henry, the co-owner of a nursing home in Baton Rouge who said she had a contract with Mabel Mangano to house St. Rita's patients in the event of a hurricane evacuation.

Henry testified she received one call from a St. Rita's staffer named Angela, who told her a day before the storm struck that St. Rita's patients would be evacuated to Baton Rouge. Henry recalled that the St. Rita's worker said she would call back to formalize their evacuation plans -- but never did.

Also testifying was an official with an ambulance company who said his firm had a contract to provide ambulances to transport St. Rita's patients in a hurricane evacuation.

Dennis Clark, the Acadian Ambulance Service Inc. executive, testified that he was inundated with evacuation calls from other nursing homes in the region, but never heard from the Manganos as the storm bore down on Louisiana.

"I did not get a call from them," he said.

The Manganos face 35 counts of negligent homicide, one for each of the patients who died in the flooding. Each defendant also faces 24 counts of cruelty, for the suffering of the survivors.

Defense lawyers have sought to lay blame for the St. Rita's deaths on local government officials, who never issued a formal, mandatory evacuation order.

The defense has subpoenaed Gov. Kathleen Blanco to testify about the state's emergency plans, as they try to blame government -- instead of the Manganos -- for the deaths and suffering at St. Rita's.

State District Judge Jerome Winsberg ruled that Blanco would have to testify. Lawyers for the state have appealed that ruling to the state Supreme Court.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)