First responders: Nurses rescue SCB Cuttack patients on ventilator as blaze tore through ward

Cuttack: Nursing officers of SCB Medical College and Hospital were the first responders when thick fumes started filling up the trauma care ICU in the wee hours of Monday all of a sudden.According to reports, three nursing officers - Oliva Patnaik, Sarojini Soren and Bhagyashree Majhi - were on duty inside the trauma care ICU when the fire broke out reportedly between 2.30 am and 2.45 am on the first floor of the five-storeyed trauma care centre building. Hearing the commotion, a male nursing officer, Bibekananda Sethi, who was on duty at the trauma casualty ward on the ground floor, also rushed to the ICU.Acting swiftly, the four raised fire alarms, detached the tubes of the critically ill patients most of whom were on oxygen and ventilator support, while nursing in-charge Suchitra Swain reached the ICU at 3 am on being alerted. With the help of security guards, attendants of patients and ICU attendants from the orthopaedic and medicine departments, both of which are located a few hundred metres away on the same hospital compound, they evacuated the patients through the fire exit ramp of the ICU sloping to the ground floor. The rescue operation was, however, marred by the thick smoke that had quickly spread through the ICU and cut visibility drastically, making movement of patients difficult. Most of the patients were taken to the ICUs of the orthopaedic and medicine departments.While the exact number of patients in the ICU at the time of the fire is yet to be ascertained, assistant nursing superintendent Swarnalata Jena said the trauma ICU had patients in each of its 14 beds. “But there is another small ICU beside it with five beds. It is not yet clear how many patients were there since the register and files have been destroyed in the fire,” she said.In the process, all the four nursing officers and nursing in-charge fell sick, mostly by inhaling the dense fumes. She added that while the condition of four nursing officers was stabilised and they were discharged on Monday morning, nursing in-charge Swain continues to remain under treatment at the orthopaedic department. “We cannot say if some patients died in the ICU while the rescue operation was underway because a patient can only be declared dead by a doctor,” she said.The rescue operation extended to other wards in the trauma care centre with security guards and attendants joining in to evacuate patients from the paediatric ICU and other wards.Sources said there were four children in the paediatric ICU during the incident who were safely evacuated. The fumes also spread to the third floor.Ghanshyam Behera of Daspalla said his father was in the third floor ward. “We heard loud noises and saw leaping fumes. I carried him on my shoulder and rushed outside,” said Behera, who helped rescue many. His father Jadumani Behera has been shifted to the orthopaedic ICU.The entire rescue and evacuation exercise took about 45 minutes to 1 hour.