As wildfires consumed parts of Northern California, including the area near Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa (Calif.) Medical Center, hospital staff remained committed to patient care — all while knowing they may lose their own homes to the flames, NBC Bay Area reports.
Police officials said a "wall of fire" erupted late Sunday evening and engulfed a mobile home park near the hospital. Kaiser officials issued the order to evacuate at least 130 patients from the facility at 3:30 a.m. Monday.
At least 55 hospital employees lost their homes in the blaze, the report states. However, Kaiser clinicians and medical staff saw patient care as their top priority.
"It would be really easy to imagine watching the flames, getting phone calls knowing that your own home was about to go up in smoke, that you would just run and try to go attend to those needs. But the reality is that everybody was committed to our patients here. It's very easy to say that everybody was a hero,"Joshua Weil, MD, an emergency medicine physician at Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa Medical Center told NBC Bay Area.
Officials said Monday's evacuation was a first for the hospital. The facility remains closed as of Oct. 13.