Image: CBS News
One of the focal points of the storm emergency in New York City last night was New York University’s Langone Medical Center: the hospital’s main and backup power generators all failed, and hospital staff had to evacuate patients as power resources faded. All but 50 patients have been evacuated, and the remaining 50 are due to be transferred this morning. Those patients included 20 prematurely-born newborn babies who were in intensive care. This morning, CBS News has a first-person account from Dr. Jonathan LaPook, a CBS News medical correspondent (also a board-certified physician in internal medicine and gastroenterology).
Many patients were too sick to walk down the narrow staircase to the lobby. They were painstakingly carried on plastic sleds – one by one – by teams of four to five people from as high up as the 17th floor. I went to several of the floors with Dr. Mark Pochapin, the director of the Division of Gastroenterology at NYU. He was one of a team of people making sure that communication flowed and that everybody was accounted for. The intensive care unit was already evacuated when I arrived. Lit only by my flashlight, filled with crumpled blankets and other evidence of a hasty retreat, it appeared eerie to me – like a scene in a movie where a cup of still-warm-coffee tells the detective that somebody had been a room only minutes before. But this was undeniably real life and the clock was ticking as the team of workers raced to evacuate the patients.
Read more: “Inside NYC hospital’s near disaster during Sandy” (CBS This Morning)