Triaging patients, resources during storm

As the storm raged on, it became harder for hospital staff to manage the influx of patients. A normal surge of patients for Blue Ridge is in the teens, but more than 30 people were waiting in the ED lobby by Friday evening.

Power outages affected everything, including digital systems. “By Friday night, the phones, the chart system, water, everything was down,” Patterson explained.

The ED moved to practicing “disaster medicine,” focusing on patients with life-threatening conditions. Patterson shared, “I was walking through the lobby with a clipboard, trying to triage and comfort patients. I remember thinking, ‘This feels like something out of a disaster movie.’”

Shannon was on call when the hurricane hit, alongside Drs. William Bell and Danielle Fontaine. “We couldn’t get in contact with most docs,” Shannon said. “The ones we did reach were trapped in their homes with trees so we were it.”

Shannon and other hospital staff worked a 36-hour shift. “We were so delirious,” Shannon said. “But we delivered the best possible care we could with the people we had without making discrepancies.”

The lack of full resources also forced Shannon to drive back and forth between Blue Ridge and Valdese hospitals to serve the patients seeking care at the Valdese campus.

While nurses and doctors worked on the front lines, hospital maintenance staff like Suggs and Lowery battled leaks, power outages, and infrastructure failures.

On Friday morning when the power went out, operations staff switched the hospital to generators and began ensuring departments like radiology had the power they needed for critical machinery. “We’d fix one issue, and then 10 or 15 minutes later, the power would flicker again. We kept going back through the buildings to get everything running, just to turn around and redo it,” Lowery said.

The hospital’s water supply was also disrupted when city water pressure dropped early Saturday morning. Suggs recalled, “We jumped into action. We had guys carrying gallon buckets of water so that we could flush toilets. Staff were able to bring in tanker trucks of water until water was finally restored Wednesday morning.”

Despite working long shifts without much rest and with their own storm-related crises awaiting them at home, Suggs and Lowery noted that staff kept working and never complained.

“Our guys never get to see the difference they make. They aren’t the doctors and nurses directly caring for patients, but hearing the stories from people coming in and knowing they took part in this gave them a lot of pride,” Lowery shared.

For many hospital staff, the experience was a humbling one. Despite their exhaustion, they couldn’t help but think of the people in the community who had lost so much more. “I was complaining about losing sleep, but then you hear about people who lost so much more, and it puts things in perspective,” Shannon said.