Hospital Fire in China Kills at Least 39
A big hospital fire in China turned tragic with at least 39 people losing their lives (from ABC News).
BEIJING Dec 16, 2005 — Patients leapt from the windows of a burning four-story hospital to escape a blaze that killed at least 39 people in China's northeast, the government said Friday.Thousands of local residents watched helplessly as patients jumped from windows on the third and fourth floors in subfreezing weather after rescuers failed to reach them, the official Xinhua News Agency said. A hospital official said that a father caught his 15-day-old child after a nurse threw the baby from a window.
Witnesses said firefighters struggled for five hours to put out the blaze that broke out Thursday at the City Central Hospital, the largest hospital in Liaoyuan, 600 kilometers (400 miles) northeast of Beijing in Jilin province.
The article also states that 183 patients were successfully transferred to other hospitals. While the deaths are tragic, the staff and fire department did a good job of evacuating so many patients. While we don't have a large hospital, I wonder if we would do as well if we had a fire there.
