Ready to rescue No need to evacuate Mercy Life Center
Ready to rescue
No need to evacuate Mercy Life Center
GUILDERLAND Emergency workers from as far away as Catskill and Castleton responded to last Fridays carbon-monoxide leak at Our Lady of Mercy Life Center.
They stood by until the furnace was fixed and residents, who never left the building, could safely return to their rooms.
Around 5:30 p.m. that evening, a boiler room mishap threatened the safety of 160 residents, many of them immobile, on one of the coldest nights of the year, according to Elmer Streeter, director of communications for St. Peters Hospital, which operates the center.
Emergency crews prepared for the worst a mass evacuation responding in full force, he said.
"Early on Friday evening, there was what we believe was a fan that operated with the boiler that malfunctioned," Streeter said. "The fire-alarm system was activated and, when the Guilderland Fire Department arrived, they determined there was a buildup of carbon monoxide in the boiler room."
Fortunately, Streeter said, a mass evacuation was avoided and residents were only moved to in-house locations as the building was ventilated to remove the carbon monoxide. Two of the buildings three boilers were fixed that evening and the third has since been repaired, he added.
"Seven people were taken to St. Peter’s and Albany Memorial hospitals," Streeter told The Enterprise. "None of them had elevated carbon monoxide levels."
Our Lady of Mercy Life Center is located at 2 Mercy Care Lane off of Western Avenue, and is a part of St. Peters Hospital.
Emergency workers from all over the area, and particularly those in Guilderland, are being credited for a well-orchestrated and effective response. Our Lady of Mercy has emergency plans in place for such incidents, and, area emergency workers say, things went according to plan.
"We had just under 50 ambulances and around 150 EMS personnel," said Howard Huth, chief of operations for the Western Turnpike Rescue Squad. "Our big concern was that it was about eight degrees that night."
One of the three boilers was kept online and was able to keep the building warm, said Streeter.
The responders included crews from the Altamont Rescue Squad; Western Turnpike Rescue Squad; Guilderland Emergency Medical Services; the Guilderland, Westmere, Fort Hunter, and Guilderland Center fire departments; the Guilderland Police, and various emergency workers from around the Capital Region and beyond.
There were a total of 48 mutual aid ambulances from 29 different agencies, according to Huth, along with buses from the Capital District Transportation Authority and Guilderland schools waiting for a possible evacuation.
Smooth operation
"The operation ran smooth and I would like to thank all of the area’s responders," said Chief Curtis Cox of the Guilderland Fire Department. "We are very appreciative of everyone’s efforts."
Continuing, Cox said of St. Peter’s emergency plans, "They do have a disaster plan, and, when things were put into action, it seemed to work well."
Nearby St. Peters Addiction Recovery Center, the public library, Guilderland High School, St. Peters Hospital and other area hospitals could all have been used as evacuation sites of Our Lady of Mercys mostly elderly residents, said Streeter.
"We established an emergency command center here at the hospital. We were prepared to take a number of people," Streeter said of St. Peter’s. "There was a lot of cooperation with other hospitals in Albany County."
Cox said ambulances would have been used to transport people along with buses for those with handicaps, which could be used to keep people warm on a frigid January night.
"That is the mode of transportation we would have used," Cox said, again thanking workers and dispatchers for what he described as a great responsive effort.
The fire department received a call from Guilderland Police, stating "heavy smoke conditions" were reported at Our Lady of Mercy, he said.
"Somebody must have pulled an alarm when they either saw or smelled what they considered heavy smoke conditions," said Cox. Firefighters determined that a carbon monoxide leak was in the building.
Cox confirmed that equipment failure in the boiler room caused the problem and the malfunction "allowed carbon monoxide to seep into the building instead of pumping it outside.
"Carbon monoxide rises, so it goes outside when we ventilate"But, it can form pockets in a building, like under a staircase," said Cox.
Our Lady of Mercys maintenance staff along with a heating contractor and National Grid helped repair the boilers and stop the leak, said Cox.
Residents were back in their rooms by 11 p.m., Cox said.
Planning
Those seven people were all returned to the living center shortly after 11 p.m., he added.
All involved agree that effective planning was key to a successful response, but, Streeter says, emergency plans have to continue to be improved upon.
"Over the next few weeks, we will try to reconstruct the event to prepare for the future," said Streeter. "There’s always something to learn from every experience"Even when you know things went really well, you have to go back and make it better.
"That’s how you ensure quality," he concluded.
Other responders agreed that planning makes the difference.
Two years ago, a water main broke at Our Lady of Mercy and a power outage ensued, resulting in a similar situation.
"Two years ago, almost to the day, Our Lady of Mercy Life Center had a water main break," Huth said. "Here we are today and its kind of like deja-vu."
Huth said the prior experience probably helped improve the collaborative efforts that took place Friday night.
"As it turns out, the EMS command, the triage officer, and the staging officer"are the same three people that are there today," Huth said about the people involved in putting out a call for "mutual aid" from other emergency crews.
"It brought Our Lady of Mercy more formally into our emergency preparations planning," Streeter said of the incident two years ago. "It ran very, very well."