Critically ill patients evacuated from downtown LA hospital after power outage at ICU
Firefighters raced against the clock to evacuate critically ill patients from a hospital in downtown Los Angeles after the ICU building lost power overnight.
The partial blackout occurred at Adventist Health White Memorial Hospital just before 1 a.m. local time, plunging the Specialty Care Center into darkness.
Crews with the Los Angeles Fire Department arrived to transport the most critical patients to other hospitals — with those on ventilators receiving top priority.
In its first update on the emergency, the LAFD wrote that it was “working with White Memorial staff and identifying prioritization of patients requiring transport to a new hospital,” with 11 people initially selected for evacuation.
Firefighters had to carry some patients from upper floors downstairs to waiting ambulances because elevators in the building housing the ICU and emergency rooms were out of commission due to the blackout.
Some 20 ambulances and hundreds of firefighters were said to have taken part in the nighttime hospital evacuation.
Ultimately, 21 patients were “deemed critical” and had to be rushed to another facility, the LAFD said.
The remaining 221 patients who were undergoing treatment at the Specialty Care Center will be relocated to a different building on the campus unaffected by the outage, according to officials.
A video uploaded to TikTok Tuesday appeared to show the inside of the hospital during the blackout.
It was not immediately known what caused the sudden power outage and whether it was related to Tropical Storm Hilary, which walloped Southern California with heavy rain, flooding and mudslides Monday.
