Patients at White Memorial Hospital in Boyle Heights — many who were on ventilators and deemed to be in critical condition — have been evacuated Tuesday due to a power outage.
The outage was reported at 11:45 p.m. Monday and firefighters were called to 1720 E. Cesar Chavez Ave. between North Boyle Avenue and North State Street regarding a power outage at the hospital’s Specialty Care Center, said LAFD spokeswoman Margaret Stewart.
The evacuated patients included infants and their mothers.
Authorities released a phone number that family members of patients at the Specialty Care Center — the only building affected — can call for information.
John G. Raffoul, president of Adventist Health White Memorial, said there were 28 patients in the NICU and the OBGYN units considered in critical condition and were moved to other hospitals.
He said the power at the hospital went out around 3 a.m. Sunday during Tropical Storm Hilary. The hospital has three emergency generators that are supposed to last three days. The hospital was operating on the emergency generators power, but they failed around midnight.
The outage was in the hospital’s main tower. Two other sections of the hospital did not experience a power outage.
Raffoul said another generator from the City of Industry is en route to the hospital Tuesday.
There were 241 patients affected by the loss of power, Stewart said.
Firefighters took many of the patients down from the hospital’s upper floors to ambulances so the patients could be taken to designated hospitals.
One of the patients was trapped in an elevator during the outage and was rescued by firefighters.
The remaining 211 patients are non-critical and were moved to the hospital’s South Tower, authorities said.
Fox 11 reported a baby had been delivered during the outage and a patient was trapped inside a non-working elevator but was rescued by firefighters.
The cause of the outage is unknown.