Hospital's Safety measures saved lives of 75 patients from fire accident

It was delayed rescue work that killed more than 90 patients in last month’s fire at the AMRI Hospital in Kolkata. And it was timely rescue work which saved the lives of 75 patients at the Columbia Asia Hospital, Hebbal, Bangalore, where a fire broke out on Friday afternoon.  

 Just three days ago, a mock fire-fighting drill had been conducted at the hospital, and it paid off. The fire broke out at 2.45 pm, and it took the hospital staff less than two minutes to switch on the water sprinklers. The fire was doused before it could spread through the two-storey hospital building, where there were more than 350 people (including hospital staff and relatives of the patients) at that time. Had the flames spread, there would have been panic stations, and evacuating patients would have become an impossibility. With the flames doused, it was only smoke that spread through the building.
 

 The patients got the smell of burning plastic, but they knew that the fire has been contained and there was no risk to their lives. They co-operated with the hospital staff and firemen who were evacuating them, and by 3.15 pm — in a mere half an hour — all 75 were moved out and ferried to other hospitals in the vicinity, Dr Jairam Nandakumar, medical director of the hospital said.
    

                                                                    Eleven patients, who were in the intensive care unit, were shifted to Columbia Asia’s Yeshwanthpur branch, while the others were shifted to nearby hospitals. Thankfully, there were no surgeries scheduled for Friday.   

 DG (fire force) D R Infant, who visited the hospital, said that prima facie it seemed that a battery in the UPS system at the basement caught fire owing to a short-circuit, but it is yet to be confirmed by the forensic lab reports. The only damage to the building was broken window panes. 

Source: Bangalore Mirror