Inside NYC hospital’s near disaster during Sandy

(CBS News) It was an extraordinary scene at NYU Langone Medical Center after the main and backup power generators failed. The stakes could not have been higher. When I arrived shortly before midnight yesterday, the lobby was filled with doctors, nurses, police officers, firefighters, and a command team of medical center personnel headed by Dr. Robert Grossman, the Dean and CEO of the medical center. They were all racing against time to try to transfer approximately 200 patients out of the Tisch Building. That included 20 newborns – four with breathing tubes – in the intensive care unit, or ICU. Those infants were swaddled in blankets and carefully carried with intravenous lines, oxygen, and monitoring devices attached. I saw a 29-week-old premature being held by a nurse who held an oxygen mask to his face. Anxious faces of parents and family members dotted the lobby.

 

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