As flood waters rose in lower Manhattan, backup generators at NYU Langone Medical Center failed -- an outage that shut down not just lights, but phones and email.
The hospital, which rises alongside the East River at 1st Avenue and E. 33rd Street, had an inpatient census of 215 when the lights went out and the decision was made to evacuate all patients, according to news reports that quoted hospital spokesperson Lorinda Klein.
The patients, carried or helped down from as high as the 17th floor, were transported to neighboring hospitals that included Mount Sinai and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
As of midday Tuesday MedPage Today's attempts to reach NYU officials were unsuccessful.
"It is every hospital's nightmare -- evaluating whether the risk of moving your most vulnerable patients outweighs the risk of sheltering in place. It sounds like NYU made the right decision, hats off to them."
31/10/2012 : By Peggy Peck / MedPage Today.
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