During the catastrophic flooding of Tropical Storm Harvey, Joseline Mendoza had one thought in her mind — the patients at Mid Jefferson Extended Care Hospital who needed medication.

A pharmacy technician currently in college working toward a career as a pharmacist, Mendoza knew her co-workers were unable to get to the pharmacy due to the flooding at their respective homes on Aug. 30.

Not that she did not have her own issues.

Her trek to get to the hospital required walking through rising floodwaters as rain pelted down, hitching a boat ride to Texas 73 and, later, after almost being swept away by the current along the highway, getting a ride by a good Samaritan and being brought to the hospital.

“We were pretty much on an island; everything around us was surrounded by water,” Mendoza, who lives in the Griffing Park area of Port Arthur, said. “Memorial Boulevard was very, very flooded. Ninth Avenue and Twin City were also flooded — the only three ways of getting there were all flooded. A co-worker with a diesel truck was going to come pick me up and when she tried her truck wouldn’t make it. The only option was to walk there.”

And walk she did.

Mendoza packed a change of clothes in a plastic bag and tucked it away in a backpack; her longtime boyfriend, Steven Meaux, also packed a change of clothes into a duffel bag and made the trip with her to keep her safe.

They started in the 3000 block of Ninth Avenue.

“We were going to walk down the middle of the street but it would have been too deep, so we walked in people’s yards and even then it was almost knee deep. The further we went the deeper it got,” she said.

They passed by fire hydrants, drowned up to their caps. They strained through the floodwaters to see the road striping as landmarks.

Trying to escape the ever-deepening waters, they moved to 36^th Street, then to Eighth Avenue. By then the water was waist deep.

“Some nice guys from the Dallas/Fort Worth area picked us up in a boat,” she said, adding that one boat had a motor and a second aluminum boat was tied to it, sans motor. “It was kind of scary. I saw helicopters flying overhead.”

The boat driver brought them to the exit ramp at Texas 73 and Ninth Avenue where Mendoza and Meaux climbed the embankment to the highway.

The sight of the area from the highway was shocking and saddening. The Port Arthur Public Library and Robert A. “Bob” Bowers Civic Center were heavily flooded; nearby a school bus had water halfway up its sides.

“Families were sitting on the overpass with totes and their personal belongings,” she said. “We walked past a husband, wife and two kids, they were standing there. We asked if they knew of any boats coming by but they weren’t sure.”

With no one in sight that was heading towards FM 365 they set out walking Texas 73 and encountered the most dangerous part of the trip — a canal that runs under the highway had overflowed onto the road.

“We walked in waist deep water and there was a current, a really, really strong current,” she said. “I had to hold on to him or I would have been swept away. We made it past this area, almost to where 73 merges with Highway 69 and a man in a big truck came by.”

She didn’t get his full name, only, “Chuck, who owns a transmission shop off Texas 73.”

“He asked us where we were going and we told him Mid-Jeff and that I needed to make it to work,” she said. “He said, ‘hop in I’ll give you a ride.’”

Chuck provided towels for them to dry off and some water to drink as he pushed past the floodwaters to the hospital.

The hospital staff that was able to make it in was shocked and happy to see Mendoza.

“I was determined to get to work for the patients and to make their IVs and give them their meds,” she said. “If my family member was up there I’d want them to have their meds, too.”

A family member in Nederland was able to make it through the floodwaters to pick up Mendoza and Meaux, bring them to her house for a shower and change of clothes, and then back to the hospital.

“Then I started running IV’s,” she said.

Mendoza, a full time student, works at the hospital as well as holds down a part time job in retail.

Her dedication to the patients at the extended care hospital hasn’t gone unnoticed. At the time the storm hit there were 37 total patients that needed care.

“With all of pharmacy staff unable to make it to work, we were in a desperate situation to get the pharmacy opened to provide medications for our patients. Joseline’s selflessness and determination ensured that our patients had everything they needed,” David Tran, director of pharmacy at the hospital, said. “We, at Mid-Jefferson, are proud to have Joseline here and truly believe she is a hero to our patients.”