About 240 patients at White Memorial Hospital in Boyle Heights — many who were on ventilators and deemed to be in critical condition — were evacuated Tuesday due to a power failure involving the facility’s emergency generator system, which was deployed after an outage a day earlier during the tropical storm.
Firefighters were sent to the facility at 1720 E. Cesar Chavez Ave. between North Boyle Avenue and North State Street at about 11:45 p.m. Monday, said Margaret Stewart of the Los Angeles Fire Department.
The evacuated patients included infants and their mothers.
There were 241 patients affected in the hospital’s Specialty Care center, 28 of whom were in critical condition, LAFD Chief Kristin Crowley said at a 7 a.m. briefing.
Those patients in critical condition were transported to other area “specialty hospitals,” and the remaining patients were also cared for by firefighters working in “blackout” conditions, Crowley said.
By about 11 a.m., all the non-critical patients also had been moved from the Specialty Care center, and firefighters began de-mobilizing, the LAFD reported.
“I’m very, very proud of our LAFD members,” Crowley said.
At the height of the emergency response, there were 104 firefighting personnel deployed to the hospital, Crowley said.
The hospital’s president, John Raffoul, said the facility had sustained an earlier outage about 3 a.m. Monday during Tropical Storm Hilary, resulting in the use of three emergency generators that he said were “supposed to last for three days.”
However, at about 1 a.m. Tuesday, there was a failure of the emergency generators, according to Raffoul, who said another emergency generator was being sent to the hospital from the city of Industry.
“All patients are safe,” Raffoul said.
One of the patients was trapped in an elevator during the outage and was rescued by firefighters.
Investigators were working to determine why the power went out originally — and why the emergency generators stopped working, Raffoul said.
“We don’t know the cause of the double failure,” Raffoul said.
Meanwhile, authorities announced that family members of patients at the hospital’s Specialty Care Center — the only building affected — can call 323-268-5000 for information.
During the outage, firefighters brought many of the patients down from the hospital’s upper floors — using stairwells since elevators were not operating — so they could be taken to designated hospitals via ambulance. The remaining non-critical patients were being moved to other areas of the hospital facility that did not lose power.
Hospital officials said a baby girl was delivered during the outage, with staffers using flashlights to illuminate the room. The baby and mother were in good condition, officials said.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who said she previously worked in the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, hailed fire crews and hospital officials for the orderly evacuation, but said she wanted to know the reasons behind the outage.
“We must get to the bottom of what happened and ensure that lives are not put at risk in this way ever again,” Bass said in a statement. “… A power outage risks the lives of all of those babies — and also the rest of the patients in critical care whose lives depend on respirators, ventilators and other critical life-sustaining equipment. Angelenos deserve a thorough examination of this incident.”