10 shocking medical mistakes

Click through this gallery to see stories of ten patient cases involving medical mistakes. "Mistakes are happening every day in every hospital in the country that we're just not catching," says Dr. Albert Wu, an internist at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Kerry Higuera was given a CT scan of her abdomen even though she was three months pregnant. The hospital had confused her with another patient also named Kerry, who was actually supposed to get the scan. The needless imaging increased the risk that Higuera's unborn baby would get leukemia or have birth defects. Fortunately, her son, Nathan, is doing fine. Nelson Bailey left surgery with a sponge still inside his abdomen -- a foot long by a foot long. When doctors eventually discovered the mistake and re-opened his wound to remove the sponge, it was rotting and had created perforations in his intestines, Bailey says. Nursing home patient Mary Cole turned up missing during a bed check. She was found four days later locked in a storage closet. She was severely dehydrated and died soon after. The family's lawyer says Cole, who suffered from Alzheimer's disease, wandered into the closet and got trapped. Sarafina Gerling saw web advertisements by Arthur Copes claiming that his back brace treatment could straighten crooked spines. She thought Copes was a doctor who could correct her scoliosis. Gerling wore a brace from Copes for six months but her curves only got worse. Copes was eventually found guilty of insurance fraud. A long ER wait cost Malia Jeffers her limbs. Doctors had to amputate Jeffers entire left hand, fingers on her right, and both her legs after staff at an emergency department made her wait nearly five hours while a flesh eating bacteria rapidly spread through her tiny body. An ER nurse wrongly assessed Jeffers' condition as a less serious virus. Blake Fought died in the hospital on the day he was scheduled to be discharged. He was sitting upright when a nurse removed his central line chest tube and covered the hole in his chest with gauze. Air entered the wound and formed bubbles in his blood that cut off blood flow to his major organs. Fought should have been lying down, and the nurse should have sealed the hole airtight. Jesse Matlock had a wandering right eye. A simple surgery could fix it, but the surgeon cut into the left eye instead of the right. According to Matlock's mother, Tasha Gual, the surgeon told her she lost her sense of direction and didn't realize she'd operated on the wrong eye until after the operation Josh Nahum fractured his skull and broke his leg in a skydiving accident. He was on the mend in the hospital when he caught an infection from the hospital. He died after doctors were powerless to fight the bacteria raging through his body. Alicia Coleman had a feeding tube in her stomach and a chest tube in her vein. A caregiver at a medical daycare mistakenly used the wrong tube and pumped medicine into Coleman's chest instead of her stomach. Coleman died when the medicine stopped her tiny heart. When Erin Cook had surgery to have an ovary tumor removed, she remembers going to sleep and then the searing pain of being sliced open. She felt trapped in her body, unable to move or speak. The hospital later informed her, she says, that a gas vaporizer was leaking during her operation and she got only 5% of the anesthesia she needed. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Expert: Medical errors kill more than 250,000 people in the United States yearly "Mistakes are happening every day in every hospital in the country," says top doctor There are strategies you can use to help doctors and nurses get things right (CNN) -- When you're a patient, you trust you're in good hands, but even the best doctor or nurse can make a mistake on you or someone you love. "Mistakes are happening every day in every hospital in the country that we're just not catching," says Dr. Albert Wu, an internist at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Medical errors kill more than a quarter million people every year in the United States and injure millions. Add them all up and "you have probably the third leading cause of death" in the country, says Dr. Peter Pronovost, an anesthesiologist and critical care physician at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The harm is often avoidable, and there are strategies you can use to help doctors and nurses get things right. Surgeons make 'body-part mix-ups' Here's a list of 10 shocking medical mistakes and ways to not become a victim: 1. Mistake: Treating the wrong patient • Cause: Hospital staff fails to verify a patient's identity. • Consequences: Patients with similar names are confused. • Prevention: Before every procedure in the hospital, make sure the staff checks your entire name, date of birth and barcode on your wrist band. • Example case: Kerry Higuera Elizabeth Cohen, CNN's senior medical correspondent 2. Mistake: Surgical souvenirs • Cause: Surgical staff miscounts (or fails to count) equipment used inside a patient during an operation. • Consequences: Tools get left inside the body. • Prevention: If you have unexpected pain, fever or swelling after surgery, ask if you might have a surgical instrument inside you. • Example case: Nelson Bailey 3. Mistake: Lost patients • Cause: Patients with dementia are sometimes prone to wandering. • Consequences: Patients may become trapped while wandering and die from hypothermia or dehydration. • Prevention: If your loved one sometimes wanders, consider a GPS tracking bracelet. • Example case: Mary Cole 4. Mistake: Fake doctors • Cause: Con artists pretend to be doctors. • Consequences: Medical treatments backfire. Instead of getting better, patients get sicker. • Prevention: Confirm online that your physician is licensed. • Example case: Sarafina Gerling 5. Mistake: The ER waiting game • Cause: Emergency rooms get backed up when overcrowded hospitals don't have enough beds. • Consequences: Patients get sicker while waiting for care. • Prevention: Doctors listen to other doctors, so on your way to the hospital call your physician and ask them to call the emergency room. • Example case: Malyia Jeffers 6. Mistake: Air bubbles in blood • Cause: The hole in a patient's chest isn't sealed airtight after a chest tube is removed. • Consequences: Air bubbles get sucked into the wound and cut off blood supply to the patient's lungs, heart, kidneys and brain. Left uncorrected the patient dies. • Prevention: If you have a central line tube in you, ask how you should be positioned when the line comes out. • Example case: Blake Fought 7. Mistake: Operating on the wrong body part • Cause: A patient's chart is incorrect, or a surgeon misreads it, or surgical draping obscures marks that denote the correct side of the operation. • Consequences: The surgeon cuts into the wrong side of a patient's body. • Prevention: Just before surgery, make sure you reaffirm with the nurse and the surgeon the correct body part and side of your operation. • Example case: Jesse Matlock 8. Mistake: Infection infestation • Cause: Doctors and nurses don't wash their hands. • Consequences: Patients can die from infections spread by hospital workers. • Prevention: It may be uncomfortable to ask, but make sure doctors and nurses wash their hands before they touch you, even if they're wearing gloves. • Example case: Josh Nahum 9. Mistake: Lookalike tubes • Cause: A chest tube and a feeding tube can look a lot alike. • Consequences: Medicine meant for the stomach goes into the chest. • Prevention: When you have tubes in you, ask the staff to trace every tube back to the point of origin so the right medicine goes to the right place. • Example case: Alicia Coleman 10. Mistake: Waking up during surgery • Cause: An under-dose of anesthesia. • Consequences: The brain stays awake while the muscles stay frozen. Most patients aren't in any pain but some feel every poke, prod and cut. • Prevention: When you schedule surgery, ask your surgeon if you need to be put asleep or if a local anesthetic might work just as well. • Example case: Erin Cook Do you have a personal story to tell about a medical mistake? Share it in the comments section below.

Your Election Day photos: Show us what you see

NBC News Share your Election Day photos with us, by tagging pictures #nbcpolitics on Instagram or Twitter. By Jon Sweeney Election Day is upon us and we want you to help us tell the story of this important day. Share photos of you voting, your polling station, what's important to you, or anything else that best sums up this American experience. How do you participate? Post pictures on Twitter, Instagram and tag them #nbcpolitics, or upload your photos using the form below. Please use the caption or tweet to tell us a little about the photo. See what readers have already submitted Readers have already shared photos of early voting. Click the images below to see them larger, and read their captions. NOTE: Photos selected by NBCNews.com, but captions and images are unedited. Related Links See reader photos in a state-by-state breakdown Follow NBC News on Instagram Follow @NBCNewsPictures on Twitter Reuters, Getty Images In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.

On social media, fakery muddies political discussion

Twitter.com A selection of Tweets from Dawn Berkley's Twitter account/ By Bob Sullivan Dawn Berkley appears to be a passionate, young female Mitt Romney supporter from La Crosse, Wis., a key battleground state.  Her Twitter and Facebook pages are jammed with anti-Democratic Party talking points like this: "The Democrats have a good cheat machine in Minnesota. Look how Al Franken "won." Watch the scum like a hawk," posted Sunday on her Facebook page.  Or this recent Tweet: "Obama campaign to girls: Have sex with vote for O," with a link to the conservative website  Brietbart.com. She's also left a smattering of pro-Romney comments at news websites and blogs, like this one on a Forbes.com story about Clint Eastwood's Republican National Convention speech: "I thought it was relevant and VERY funny! I'm 22 and never watched an Eastwood movie till after I saw him do this skit. The man is remarkable." Berkley's social media presence is also remarkable.  Outside the political commentary, there is scant activity on her accounts.  And she has a remarkably thin photo collection for a 22-year-old -- in fact, there's only one picture available to her Facebook friends. Her mandatory profile photo shows an attractive young woman posing with an over-the-shoulder, come hither look. Perhaps that's why the very same photo is used in many places across the Internet, including on various Asian massage websites. The rightful owner of the face, however, appears to be Korean pop singer Lee Hyori, who uses the image as her promotional headshot. So who is Dawn Berkley, if not a dead ringer for a Korean pop singer? NBC News managed to get whoever controls her Facebook account to accept a friend request, but that person did not respond to follow-up emails, so there is no way to know. It's possible she is a 22-year-old Romney supporter who simply doesn't want to use her own face online for privacy reasons. It's also possible that everything about Dawn Berkley's account is, like the photo, fake. If so, it would hardly be the only phony social media account used in this election season.  Accusations have been raised against both parties that Twitter and Facebook follower numbers have been inflated by millions through various manipulations. In the first presidential election where social media is a full-fledged election battleground, the rules of engagement are anything but clear. That's led to some unsavory conduct. A social media management company named Status People caused a stir in August when it said it estimated that a majority of President Barack Obama's followers were either "inactive," meaning they never post Tweets, or fake.  (It's important to note the firm uses a very rudimentary sampling method). Questions dogged the Romney campaign about its Twitter ranks in July, when Romney's followers jumped 17 percent in a single day.  That news sent opponents into a frenzy, scanning the list for fakes, which weren't hard to spot: One skeptic found six Romney followers using the same photo. E-mail a tip to Bob Sullivan There have even been claims by hundreds of Obama supporters that they were somehow tricked or hacked into "liking" Mitt Romney on Facebook, as evidenced by the "Hacked by Mitt Romney" page.  Facebook says there's a much simpler explanation than hacking; it's fairly easy to accidentally like a page on Facebook, making that the likely culprit. Both campaigns deny buying followers or engaging in any wrongdoing, such as what might be called "political sockpuppetry" – creation of fake identities to espouse the candidate's views. It's entirely possible that anyone engaging in fake Tweets or comments is doing so on their own, without instruction from a campaign.  It's also debatable that there's anything wrong with posting political comments under an assumed identity online. Pseudonyms have long played an important role in American politics: Pamphleteers in Colonial times often used fake names (PDF). In the commercial world, however, such fakery is illegal, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Faux endorsements of companies or services by invented characters, or by people who receive compensation but don't disclose it, violate the Federal Trade Commission Act. Such actions constitute false advertising, the agency says. Of course, that hasn't stopped the practice of fly-by-night firms creating fake blogs with commenters discussing how much they like a certain magic herbal cure or that problem-solving gadget. It's so widespread that the online advertising community has created a name for it: "The Fakosphere." Getting into the fakosphere is easy, and cheap. There are numerous places online offering 1,000 Twitter followers for as little as $5. The fundamental problem is simple: The Internet is built to enable anonymity, no it's not possible under normal circumstances to know if someone online is fake or real. That's a perfect playground for those who would engage in sockpuppetry.  Fortunately most Internet users are aware of the anonymity issue.  Still, even professionals can be fooled. When a fake Twitter account created in the name of actor Jake Gyllenhaal tweeted, "As a Democrat, I'll say it now, I endorse Mitt Romney," the post was convincing enough that The Drudge Report briefly reported it as fact.  For their part, Twitter and Facebook say their terms of service prohibit all such behavior, but it's obviously a challenge to monitor 1 billion accounts for signs of fakery. Still, the companies try. Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said the company doesn't have statistics or anything specific to say about the "political space." But he pointed toward a recent company blog post that described "site integrity systems, including recent increases to our automated efforts to remove Likes on Pages that may have been gained by means that violate our terms." And Zach Green, who runs left-leaning Twitter political consulting firm 140Elect.com, said that concerns about fake online political activity are overblown. "We haven't seen any large astroturfing events," he said, referring to widespread campaigns organized by masked sponsors and designed to push a hidden agenda. People have been waiting for one the whole election cycle, but it never really materialized." Internet users are particularly unforgiving when a fake account is exposed in wrongdoing, as occurred during Hurricane Sandy, when a Republican campaign worker in New York was caught Tweeting false information from an anonymous account during the height of the storm. The incident proves that while it's easy to spread misinformation online, the Internet is has a pretty good self-correction mechanism. That's why he thinks both campaigns have stayed away from any widespread fakery, Green said. "There is such a small benefit to the campaign, and there would be such a large backlash," he said. * Follow Bob Sullivan on Facebook. * Follow Bob Sullivan on Twitter

In storm-hit states, some locations changed for casting ballots on Election Day

By Tom Curry, NBC News national affairs writer Updated 7:48pm ET In the storm-ravaged states of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, officials have moved some Election Day voting locations, although many remain unchanged. As of noon Monday, Connecticut Secretary of State Denise Merrill said that utility companies in her state have reported that electricity has been restored to all but two of 773 voting precincts in the state. Gov. Cuomo signed an order allowing any voter to vote at any polling place on Tuesday – and in New Jersey, it's possible to vote via email or fax. NBC's Ron Allen reports. Her Web site posted the two voting place changes: · Bridgeport's Longfellow School polling place has been relocated to Aquaculture School, 60 St. Stephens Road, Bridgeport. · New London's Ocean Beach polling place has been relocated to Harbor School, 432 Montauk, Ave, New London. Recommended: Romney, Obama hit must-win states in 'barnburner' campaign day In New Jersey, storm-displaced voters who are temporarily staying in a part of the state where they are not registered, are permitted to go to any polling place in New Jersey on Election Day and vote by using a provisional ballot. The ballot will be forwarded to the county of the voter's residence. Tim Aubry / Reuters Utility trucks and first responders navigate flood waters on the main stretch of road in Peahala Park, N.J., in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, in this photograph taken on October 30, 2012 and released on Oct. 31. Displaced New Jersey voters also have until 5 p.m. ET on Election Day to fax or e-mail a request for a mail ballot to their county clerk. More information is available at the New Jersey Division of Elections website, on voting by fax or e-mail.  The voter must transmit the ballot to the county board of elections no later than 8 p.m. ET on Election Day. Some counties in New Jersey have posted changes in voting locations or have alerted voters about the status of voting locations in their area. Here are a few: · Union County: County officials have posted an announcement that "almost all polling places are expected to be open on Election Day, Tuesday November 6. An updated list will be available later today." ·   Ocean County: The county has posted a list of changes in voting locations here. ·  Atlantic County: The elections board has posted a list of changes in voting locations here. ·  Monmouth County: The county has posted a list of locations here. The county also says: "Provisions have been made for residents in two of the most severely storm-ravaged boroughs to vote in neighboring communities. Sea Bright residents will vote at the Fair Haven Fire House on 645 River Road in Fair Haven. Loch Arbour residents will be voting at the Allenhurst Fire House on 311 Hume Street in Allenhurst. All other residents will vote in their own community." Recommended: Romney adds Election Day stops in Ohio, Pennsylvania In New York, as of Monday morning, some counties were still in the process of finding new voting locations but had not yet posted them on their Web sites. Suburban Nassau County, which was hit especially hard by last week's storm surge and flooding, has posted a list of the voting locations that have been moved or consolidated, here. In addition, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order on Monday that will allow displaced voters from one of the federally-declared disaster counties, such as Nassau, who may temporarily be in a county other than where they live to vote by affidavit ballot. The affidavit ballot will be sent to the board of elections where the voter is registered. According to Cuomo's press office, these votes by affidavit ballot will count for the office of president and United States senator "and for any other candidate and ballot initiative that appears on the official ballot where the voter is registered." Listed below are links to the polling place search tools that each state offers, but be aware that in some cases changes in polling locations might not be reflected in the voter lookup tool databases. · Search tool for New Jersey voters here. · Search tool for New York state voters here. · Search tool for New York City voters here. · Search tool for Connecticut voters here. For voters who want to use early voting or an absentee ballot, here's some information: · In New York, a voter needs a specific reason to vote by absentee ballot, such as being out of the state on Election Day, having a disability, or being in prison due to having been convicted of a non-felony offense. The State Board of Elections has announced that the deadline for applying in person for an absentee ballot is Monday. Absentee ballots must be postmarked no later than Monday, Nov. 5. Those mailed ballots have until Nov. 19 to arrive at the local Board of Elections. · In New Jersey, any voter can vote by mail. A voter may apply in person to the County Clerk until 3:00 p.m. ET Monday. Vote by mail ballot must be received by the County Board of Elections no later than 8 p.m. ET on Election Day. · In Connecticut, voting by absentee ballot is limited  to the sick and disabled, those in active service in the armed forces, and those absent from their town for all of Election Day. The deadline to apply for an absentee ballot is Monday and the deadline for returning the absentee ballot is 8 p.m. ET on Election Day.

Zoo mauling: Boy killed by dogs, not fall

A 2-year-old Pennsylvania  boy was mauled to death by 11 African painted dogs after he slipped from a railing and fell into the exhibit. WXPI's Jodine Costanzo reports. By NBC News staff and wire services A medical examiner has ruled that a 2-year-old boy who tumbled into an African painted dog exhibit at a Pittsburgh zoo was killed by the animals and not by the fall, a zoo official said Monday. "What we understand from the medical examiner's report, the child did not die from the fall. The child was mauled by the dogs," said Barbara Baker, CEO and president of the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium, WPIX-TV reported. Officials say the child's mother had placed the boy on a wooden rail above the exhibit so he could get a better look at the animals. There is a net below the rail, but Baker says the boy bounced off it and into the enclosure. "The child initially was caught by the netting. From witness accounts the child was so small that he bounced, then he bounced twice and then bounced into the exhibit," Baker said. Gene J. Puskar / AP file An African Painted Dog at the Pittsburgh Zoo and Aquarium in Pittsburgh in 2009. Baker fought back tears as she discussed the incident during a press conference at the zoo on Monday. "The zoo feels terrible about this tragic accident that happened. It's your worst nightmare as a zoo professional," Baker said, according to WPIX-TV. The animals attacked so quickly that by the time a veterinarian and other zoo staffers arrived, they determined it would have been futile to try to rescue the child, Baker said. Boy falls into Pittsburgh zoo exhibit, mauled to death by African painted dogs 'Someone help!' Authorities said that zoo staff and then police responded "within minutes." Visitors described that time as being filled with screams for help. "The screams just kept coming and coming: 'Someone help! Someone has to do something'," Angela Cinti, a witness, told The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Sunday.   Zookeepers called off some of the dogs, and seven of them immediately went to a back building. Three more eventually were drawn away from the child, but the last dog was aggressive and police had to shoot the animal. "There were three dogs, one at his head, one on the left side of his neck and another one down by his leg, " Cinti told The Post-Gazette. "A [zoo employee] got there and hopped over a fence with a rake and he was banging ... trying to distract the dogs, but they wouldn't move." Experts said the death is highly unusual. Stay informed with the latest headlines; sign up for our newsletter Steve Feldman, a spokesman for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, told The Associated Press no one he's spoken to can recall any deaths of children at an accredited zoo over the last 40 years or more. Feldman said the Pittsburgh Zoo successfully completed its five-year review in September, which means it meets or exceeds all safety standards. Authorities didn't release the name of the boy but relatives identified him as Maddock Derkosh, according to the Post-Gazette. Authorities said his mother is 34 years old and lives in Pleasant Hills, just outside Pittsburgh. The boy's father was identified by the Post-Gazette as Jason Derkosh, a building designer at the architectural firm L. Robert Kimball & Associates. The zoo was immediately closed, and it was not clear when it will reopen, authorities said. African painted dogs are about as big as medium-sized domestic dogs, and weight 37 to 80 pounds, according to the zoo. They have large, rounded ears and dark brown circles around their eyes and are considered endangered. The attack happened in a 1.5 acre exhibit called the Painted Dog Bush Camp that's part of a larger open area where elephants, lions and other animals can be seen. Visitors walk onto a deck that is glassed on the sides, but open in front where the roughly four-foot railing is located. In May, some of the dogs crawled under a fence and escaped into a part of the exhibit that's usually closed. The zoo was on lockdown for about an hour as a precaution and the animals were coaxed back in. Fatal attacks Past fatal attacks have prompted zoos around the nation to review safety features of their exhibits. In 2007 a tiger jumped over a wall at the San Francisco Zoo, killing one visitor and wounding two others. Authorities first said the wall was 18 feet high, but a review found it was just 12 ½ feet. Watch the most-viewed videos on NBCNews.com In September a man jumped off an elevated viewing train at the Bronx Zoo in New York and was severely mauled by tigers. Kraus said there was nothing to prevent visitors to the Pittsburgh Zoo's painted dog exhibit from jumping into the exhibit area. Police and the Allegheny County medical examiner's office are investigating, and they haven't yet interviewed the mother or father, who are receiving grief counseling. Baker said the zoo, which has never had a visitor death, will also investigate. She said no decision has been made yet on the future of the exhibit. NBC News's Sevil Omer and The Associated Press contributed to this report. More content from NBCNews.com: Pulpit politics: Pastors endorse candidates, thumbing noses at IRS Boy falls into zoo exhibit, mauled to death by African painted dogs Weed wars: If states legalize pot, will feds still crack down? Delphi retirees say government betrayed them Nonvoters: They're too busy, fed up or say their vote doesn't count Video: Marathon runners racing to help out Sandy victims Follow US news from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

Photos: Obama's final week

President Barack Obama convenes a conference call to discuss the response to Hurricane Sandy in his office aboard Air Force One during the flight to New Hamsphire on Oct. 27, 2012. Obama holds backstage with Nancy-Ann DeParle, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, and traveling aide Bobby Schmuck prior to an event at the Elm Street Middle School in Nashua, New Hampshire, on Oct. 27, 2012. Obama has lunch following an event at the Elm Street Middle School in Nashua, New Hampshire, on Oct. 27, 2012. Obama walks with daughters Sasha, right, and Malia, center, and Kaye Wilson as they return to the White House from St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington on Oct. 28, 2012. Obama, seated between FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate (r) and Richard Serino, FEMA deputy administrator, (l) receives an update on the response to Hurricane Sandy at the National Response Coordination Center at FEMA headquarters in Washington on Oct. 28, 2012. Obama talks with former President Bill Clinton at the DoubleTree Downtown Orlando Hotel in Orlando, Florida, on Oct. 28, 2012. After cancelling an appearance at a campaign event in order to return to Washington to monitor the response to Hurricane Sandy, Obama arrives at the White House on Oct. 29, 2012. Obama receives an update on the response to Hurricane Sandy in the Situation Room of the White House on Oct. 29 2012. Obama receives an update from officials on the response to Hurricane Sandy in the Situation Room of the White House on Oct. 30, 2012. Obama discusses the response to Hurricane Sandy by phone with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, while Alyssa Mastromonaco, the Deputy White House Chief of Staff for Operations, sits at right in the Oval Office on Oct. 30, 2012. Obama receives an update on the Hurricane Sandy response in the Situation Room of the White House on Oct. 30, 2012. Obama "tweets" a thank you message to people making donations to the Red Cross during his visit to the Disaster Operation Center of the Red Cross at national headquarters in Washington on Oct. 30, 2012. Obama and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie look at storm damage along the coast of New Jersey on Marine One on Oct. 31, 2012. Obama and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie talk with local residents at the Brigantine Beach Community Center in Brigantine, New Jersey, on Oct. 31, 2012. Obama hugs Donna Vanzant, the owner of North Point Marina, as he tours damage from Hurricane Sandy in Brigantine, New Jersey, on Oct. 31, 2012. Obama works with Jon Favreau, director of speechwriting, aboard Air Force One en route to Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Nov. 1, 2012. Obama greets Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, at the Cheyenne Sports Complex in Las Vegas on Nov. 1, 2012. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 CNN asked each campaign to submit photos from the final week before Election Day Pete Souza is President Barack Obama's Chief Official White House photographer and was a White House photographer during Ronald Reagan's second term Many of these photographs are exclusive to CNN (CNN) -- As President Barack Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney crisscrossed the country during the final week of the 2012 presidential campaign, few people were able to see the candidates in their most candid and unguarded moments, except for their personal photographers. Several weeks ago, CNN invited each campaign team to submit images from the last week of the race, from Friday, Oct. 26 through Saturday, Nov. 3. Little did anyone know that the last week would be dominated not by last-minute stops in swing states or wall-to-wall speeches to rally the party faithful, but rather one story: Superstorm Sandy. Here are images, many provided exclusively to CNN by the Obama campaign and The White House, displayed in chronological order and shot by photographer Pete Souza. Souza, who is Chief Official White House photographer and Director of the White House Photography Office, has been at Obama's side since before he was elected president in 2008 and was a White House photographer during Ronald Reagan's second term. Click here to see a similar gallery from the Romney campaign.