(CBS) Dr. Pou and the nurses agreed to talk to 60 Minutes but their lawyers would not let them discuss any specifics of their actions that day. The lawyers say that's because there are still a number of civil suits brought by families of the deceased that have yet to be heard. But Dr. Pou will answer the central question.

Asked if she murdered those patients, as the attorney general alleges, she says, "No, I did not murder those patients. Mr. Safer, I've spent my entire life taking care of patients. I have no history of doing anything other than good for my patients. I do the best of my ability. Why would I suddenly start murdering people? This doesn't make sense."

She also says she is just not capable of any sort of mercy killing.

"I do not believe in euthanasia. I don't think that it's anyone's decision to make when a patient dies," Dr. Pou explains. "However, what I do believe in is comfort care. And that means that we ensure that they do not suffer pain."

"Doctors make decisions every day in terms of the so called double effect where the medicine I am going to give to this person I know is it's going to ease their pain. But, I also know there is another possible effect and the effect is to shorten their lives. Are we talking about something like that?" Safer asks.

"Are we talking about in this case?" Dr. Pou asks.

"Yes," Safer replies.

"Any time that you provide pain medicine to anybody there is a risk," Dr. Pou explains. "But, as I said, my role is to help them through their pain."

Murder or not, the alleged crimes took place when help was actually on the way. But no one in the hospital knew that. The owners of Memorial had chartered five helicopters; within hours hundreds of people were evacuated, 34 people lay dead.

"I don't think I could have done anything more. I worked almost around the clock running up and down the stairs," Dr. Pou says. "I did the best I could under these dreadful conditions that I did not create, but were created by the fact that we were abandoned."

Safer asked Foti if he took the conditions into consideration when he made his decision.

He says he did and says he has no second thoughts.

Though no longer facing life in prison, the three women still face civil lawsuits brought by the families of those who died. Whatever may have happened at Memorial over those four days two years ago, it is one more example of the utter failure of city, state and federal authorities which placed Dr. Anna Pou and the nurses in a hopeless situation – the worst part of which, for Dr. Pou, was the prospect of never practicing medicine again.

"That is the thing that is truly the most painful for me," Dr. Pou. "I'm very committed and I love what I do. I mean, I really love it. It is the best thing about my life. And the fact that I may not to be able to continue to do the thing that I love the most when I know I can do a lot of good is just phenomenally, phenomenally painful to me."

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Now that Dr. Pou has been cleared of all criminal charges she says she will return to practicing medicine. Attorney General Charles Foti says he still believes Dr. Pou is guilty of murder.

Produced By Deirdre Naphin and Katherine Textor
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