How a Texas hospital evacuated patients after Hurricane Harvey
Beaumont Baptist Hospital, located about 85 miles away from Houston, was one of a few facilities in the region that decided to evacuate patients due to Hurricane Harvey. But moving 243 injured and ill patients—including one with a broken pelvis—isn’t so easy, as the New York Times chronicled.
Theodore Atwood broke his pelvis while preparing for the storm and was admitted to Beaumont Baptist. The hospital decided to evacuate on Aug. 31 and Sept. 1 after the city’s water system failed, though the facility itself didn’t flood and its emergency department remained open.
Using ambulance buses and helicopters, patients were evacuated to Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center in Houston, part of the Texas Medical Center campus. Atwood winced in pain from the bus’s movement over speed bumps getting out of the parking lot, with workers trying to stabilize his gurney with duffel bags. He eventually got a smoother ride in a regular ambulance for much of the trip.
“They were real caring,” Atwood said of the ambulance team. “They were good guys.”
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John joined TriMed in 2016, focusing on healthcare policy and regulation. After graduating from Columbia College Chicago, he worked at FM News Chicago and Rivet News Radio, and worked on the state government and politics beat for the Illinois Radio Network. Outside of work, you may find him adding to his never-ending graphic novel collection.