CODE D

It's not too often you hear this code in a hospital, but Friday, December 12th we entered disaster mode. After 2 days of serious rain and ice, three telephone poles came down in the middle of the entrance to the hospital. There's only one way in and out, and that road was blocked. No main power and no one in, no one out. The generators kicked in right away, so no one had to ambu the vent patients all day. Thank god. The road was cleared by 2:45pm, so luckily the 3-11 shift could come on. My day was pretty much business as usual, a lot quieter though with having to talk to my patients over the roommates blaring TV or interrupting families visiting. Unforgettable- CODE D, hopefully the first and last. I called my OT buddy Mike to tell him the story and he told me his "fire story." Basically a patient was about to be discharged to a long term psych facility, so he lit his hospital room a blaze. Mike ended up evacuating 123 patients out into the parking lot. Now that is crazy! See anything can happen on any given day. Gotta stay focused.