Hospital probes power failure in wildfire

subscribe

Authorities are investigating why an emergency generator failed at a local hospital after a wildfire had burned through powerlines to the facility.

Patients were plunged into darkness for several hours when the fire tore through two dozen office bungalows and trailers on the outskirts of the Olive View-UCLA Medical Center campus early November 15 and chewed through power lines that supplied electricity to the 337-bed hospital in the foothill community of Sylmar.

The hospital, which housed 200 patients at the time, lost power. The lights briefly went back on after the backup generator kicked in, but the facility fell into darkness again when the emergency generator failed.

"All of our systems failed," hospital spokeswoman Carla Nino said. "Staff stepped up and did a miraculous job. There was no compromise to our patients."

During the 3 1/2-hour outage, nurses tried to calm scared patients, security guards patrolled the pitch-black halls with flashlights and emergency room staffers used hand-cranked ventilators to keep critical patients breathing.

About two dozen patients on ventilators, including 10 newborns, were transferred by ambulance to neighboring hospitals. The hospital did not suffer damage and did not evacuate.

Olive View and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works are leading the investigation into the generator failure. The hospital also plans to hire a consultant to conduct an independent probe.

At the fire command center over the weekend, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger raised concerns about Olive View outage.

"We need to make sure we have good backup generators at our local hospitals," he said.

Related News

bolsonaro

Brazil government considers emergency Coronavirus loans for power sector

SAO PAULO - Brazil’s government is considering an emergency loan package for energy distributors struggling with lower energy use and facing lost revenues because of the coronavirus outbreak, an industry group told Reuters.

Marcos Madureira, president of Brazilian energy distributors association Abradee, said the package being negotiated by companies and the government could involve loans from state development bank BNDES or a pool of banks, but that the value of the loans and other details was not yet settled.

Also, Brazil’s Mines and Energy Ministry is indefinitely postponing projects to auction off energy transmission and generation assets planned for this year because…

READ MORE

Ireland announces package of measures to secure electricity supplies

READ MORE

clock

Renewable growth drives common goals for electricity networks across the globe

READ MORE

site c

Site C mega dam billions over budget but will go ahead: B.C. premier

READ MORE

renewable energy protest

Why the shift toward renewable energy is not enough

READ MORE