Hospitals can barely keep up in postquake chaos

  Mary-Ann Bendel; John Ritter

  01/18/1994

  USA Today

  FINAL

  Page 02A

  (Copyright 1994)

  LOS ANGELES - Surgery in the parking lot. People stumbling around

  zombie-like in shock. Injured pouring in off the street. Patients in wheelchairs

  rushed outside a quake-damaged hospital. No water. No power. No phones.

  This was the chaos at Northridge Community Medical Center, just minutes from

  the quake's center, as emergency teams treated a deluge.

  "We were only able to get two operating rooms going," says Peter Hong, a

  trauma surgeon. "People were bleeding, they had fractured ribs and arms,

  multiple lacerations."

  Similar scenes played out across the San Fernando Valley.

  Authorities said the quake severely injured an undetermined number of people.

  Many were airlifted south to undamaged hospitals as emergency rooms filled up.

  Two victims with spinal injuries and two needing Caesarean sections were flown

  to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in the first postquake hours.

  "We've been told we may get 30 to 40 additional patients," said Robert

  Hockberger, chief of emergency medicine.

  The quake's predawn timing kept injuries down, officials said. Still, hospitals

  with elaborate, well-rehearsed disaster plans found themselves struggling to

  cope.

  The injured picked their way through rubble-strewn streets and past downed

  power lines, only to find hospitals too swamped to treat them.

  A line of injured waited for treatment up to four hours in searing sun outside

  Granada Hills Community Hospital - wearing yellow tags marked "Disaster" in

  black letters.

  Hundreds, many relatives of injured, descended on Valley Hospital Medical

  Center in Van Nuys.

  Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills treated 250 patients in the first three

  hours. "We've seen a million injuries. Dislocated bones, lacerations, a lot of

  blood," said admitting director Toni Regalado.

  Outside Holy Cross, a dozen mothers cuddled babies at an incubator parked on

  the lawn.

  Patients lay on gurneys or huddled under blankets in dimly lit hallways.

  Emergency generators kicked on, and staffs scurried to round up bottled water

  and fruit juice.

  At damaged Sepulveda Veterans Administration Hospital, a stream of transit

  authority buses and private ambulances ferried 330 patients.

  Lora Isaac, 35, cut on the palm of her right hand trying to shield her face from

  flying glass, was turned away at Holy Cross. She went with her 64-year-old

  mother to Granada Hills. "It's hard to wait out here in the hot sun," Isaac said.

  "But we're just thankful to be alive."

  Many were caught in their sleep and their injuries showed it.

  Chris Frye, 65, a retired Northridge clerical worker, awoke to objects tumbling

  off his bedroom dresser. He rushed into the dining room, stepped on a broken

  tumbler and opened a long gash in his left foot.

  A falling picture frame above her bed struck Babe Foster, 20, in the head and

  gave her a concussion. A piece of glass from the frame sliced a 3-inch gash

  above her right knee.

  "I hate earthquakes," she said. "They're really a drag."

  Tom Rudenko, 27, a Cal State Northridge student, said, "A bookcase must have

  fallen on me, that's probably what it was." He nursed an ice pack over a swollen

  wrist. "I'll hate to wait three hours and find out it's not broken," he said.

  The quake threw Jordan Thabet, 25, a Granada Hills Tae-Kwan-Do instructor,

  off his waterbed, dislocating a shoulder. "Scariest thing that's ever happened to

  me," he said.

  Pat Sapinoso of North Hollywood, brought in her father, Hugo Garcia, 80, who

  suffers from a heart condition. "He got so scared, he fainted."

  Hospitals were anything but safe havens. Debra Launius, 36, of Simi Valley,

  gave birth to her third child three hours before the quake hit. "I had no control;

  my legs were trapped," she said.

  "I tried to get up to my baby who was in a crib rolling down the floor. The crib

  kept rolling and I couldn't get to her. I felt very defenseless."

  In the confusion at Granada Hills - fallen ceiling tiles and insulation, broken light

  fixtures and flooded bathrooms that forced evacuation of two floors - chief

  operating officer Dale Turner spoke for hospital officials across the region:

  "We're just trying to get some control. It's touch-and-go."

  Contributing: Alan Bash and Jonathan T. Lovitt

  PHOTO,b/w,Doug Pizac,AP; PHOTO,b/w,Lenny Ignelzi,AP