"I spent most of my life at that hospital," emergency room physician Dr. Jim Roscoe said, his voice cracking. "It's awful. I had two pregnant nurses who dove under gurneys. I had staff who showed up. They were hurt, but they worked all night long. It's a testimony to the human spirit."At our hospital, we call it a tornado warning rather than giving it a colour code. I think that's more direct and gives patients, visitors, and families better information. Like most hospitals, we have drills and specific policies to help guide us in case of various disasters, and we receive continual training to protect those in the building. But we're also a very small hospital--50 beds and primarily patients are in our outpatient clinic; I can't wrap my head head around getting everyone to evacuate to the hallways in a multi-storey hospital with over 100 patients, not to mention the number of staff and visitors. What about the multi-building hospitals like Central Baptist here in Lexington? That must be a logistics nightmare. I don't envy their risk management team.
In the terrifying minutes before the twister struck, the hospital declared a "Condition Gray," and patients, relatives and staff members were told to leave their rooms and go into stairwells and other protected interior parts of the building.
Despite what hospital officials said was at least 10 minutes' warning inside the building before the tornado hit, Roscoe said at least five of the 116 people who died in the tornado in Joplin were killed at St. John's. He said he did not know if the victims were patients or staff members.
It sounds like the hospital did an excellent job under the circumstances. I'm sure in months to come (assuming they can rebuild), they will go through and analyze what happened and how things could be improved. Although some patients and a visitor (according to another report I saw) did die, it could have been so much worse.
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