Cleanup at Duke University Hospital entered its second day Saturday after a burst pipe flooded the hospital’s emergency department a day earlier.
The hospital sent WRAL News photos of the cleanup, which showed a gray cleaning liquid on the floor, which the hospital said was safe – adding it is used to prevent biological growth, corrosion and scale inside the piping.
It was a stark contrast from Friday, which showed water ponding on the floor and falling from the ceiling of the emergency department.
It forced several patients coming to the hospitals for treatment to divert elsewhere as the hospital cleaned the damage.
Trisha Roberge said she was in the hospital for a check up at the recommendation of a surgeon who performed a procedure on her.
The flooding changed those plans.
“All of a sudden, it was like a gush of two to three inches of water that was just flowing out,” she said. “We were just like, ‘Well, what do we do?'”
The hospital set up mobile emergency services outside of the hospital to help those who needed immediate assistance.
“There was a good amount of of us that were in the waiting room that had IVs,” Roberge said.
While some emergency beds have opened up, the hospital told WRAL News that more work is needed.
Roberge told WRAL News the hospital had several protocols in place. Only one family member could visit each patient and several doctors visited patients in the hospital’s cafeteria.
For Roberge, privacy felt like an afterthought.
“The surgeon did my scope in the cafeteria,” she said. “A little bit off to the side, but if people were curious, they were looking at me getting my scope done.”
Roberge said doctors eventually sent her to Duke Regional Hospital 10 minutes away and she was discharged after 12 hours.
Despite the situation, Roberge said she credits the hospital’s doctors and staff for their handling of the difficult situation.
Durham EMS said they have a plan in place if they continue to be turned away from the hospital.
“If we do encounter increased wait times, then we may be able to adjust certain things like send someone to local hospitals to move things around or triage-type stuff and get our ambulances clear,” said Gordon Smith with Durham County EMS.
The hospital said they hope to resume service as soon as possible, with a goal of opening additional beds and the emergency department triage area and waiting room this weekend.
Duke released a statement saying:
“Working around the clock to ensure that our patients receive
high-quality care, crews at Duke University Hospital have made progress in
restoring some essential services to the Emergency Department, which was
flooded on Dec. 26 after a chilled water pipe burst.
The ED front entrance, waiting room and 16 beds are now operational. We are
also using additional clinical units for treating emergency patients who arrive
by their own means. This represents a majority of the 76 spaces the hospital
typically has in its Emergency Department.
The ED is still on divert for ambulance traffic, but we
anticipate opening up to some ambulance traffic later today. The hospital is
accepting transfer patients from other hospitals who need inpatient care and it
has accepted more than 100 patients over the last four days.
Surgical cases are proceeding as normal.
Adjacent radiology areas suffered significant damage, and imaging services
continue to be redistributed to other sites throughout the hospital and health
system, prioritizing acute care patients first.
Our priority is the safety and care of our patients, and we appreciate our
incredible teams working non-stop to restore access to the services patients
need as we recover from this unprecedented event. We also extend a sincere
thank you to our neighboring hospitals that have taken care of the community in
extraordinary fashion during this event.”
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