Saturday, March 04, 2006

All in a Night's Work...

Ugh. I've been working nightshift all week, and am SO out of sorts.
Thursday night, at about 2am, the other nurse and I were chit-chatting, when on the hospital overhead speaker a 'Code Brown' was announced. Now, any nurse will tell you what they know is a 'Code Brown'...it usually means an extra large poop that requires at least 3 nurses to clean up! So, we had our little giggle, but then realized that a 'Code Brown' (as we know it) is really not something that gets called out on the hospital overhead in the middle of the night, therefore it must be something more serious. We searched the Emergency board and realized that it was an Internal Disaster ...not of the poopie kind.
It turns out that there was a massive flood causes by a burst pipe, directly over one of the ICU's, and they needed to evacuate patients. We ran up to help, and found ourselves standing in about 3 inches of water, water seeping through the ceiling, and water gushing down the stairwell like a waterfall!
This is how the flood was discovered, as told to me by the nurse:
Patient: Nurse! I need some help here...
Nurse: Ok, Sweetie, I'll be right there...
Patient: (a little louder) Nurse!!! I need help right now!
Nurse: Ok, Honey, just a sec...
Patient: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
The nurse ran to the room, and the patient was soaking wet, with the ceiling raining down on her like a shower! (How's that for a sponge bath?!")
As the nurse got to this paitent, all she culd hear from the next bed was "OHHH NOOO!!! IT'S HAPPENING TO ME TOO!!!!"
Everyone was a bit wet, but luckily, no one was hurt, (nor electrocuted.)
It took us hours, but we finally evacuated the unit.
From the CEO of the Hospital in an email to staff:
Remediation teams are on-site and the clean-up and assessment processes are moving ahead as planned. As well as our own staff, who have done an incredible job in re-locating patients and ensuring the environment remains safe and as functional as possible, we have contracted with a company that specializes in these types of situations. They recently worked with Women's College on their flood abatement and the City of New Orleans, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, so we are in good hands
Hardly on par with anything even remotely close to what happened in New Orleans, but nonetheless, not a good situation to be happening at the Regional Trauma Centre.

That's my excitement for the week.

1 comment:

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