We were asked not to inform patients about the fire: AMRI nurse

KOLKATA: Nurses and other staff members at AMRI Hospital had clear instructions not to call the fire brigade or alert patients in an emergency until they were ordered to do so by the hospital authority. Such instructions tied the hands of the nursing staff when the fire broke out.
What's more, the fire safety classes had never taught them how to deal with toxic fumes in pitch darkness.They were not told that in an emergency they'd be left on their own to do what they thought best. It also never taught them that the 5555 fire code would not work when a fire breaks out - because all telephones would go dead.
So it was basically the nurses, men and women, coughing and vomiting through the killer fumes, who did their best to save lives. They took IV stands and bed keys to break the window panes, dragged patients out and later helped them through the balcony to the fire ladders to live. But they couldn't reach everyone - and it is something that will haunt them for life.
"It must have been around 3am when the news of the fire reached my ward. We immediately started dialing the numbers we were asked to during an emergency. The numbers were jammed. We did not know whether to alert the patients or not as we had instructions not to inform them about an emergency," said a nurse who was on the third floor.
One of the nurses got through to the night superintendent and was told not to tell anything to the patients. By then, smoke had started engulfing the ward. Some patients woke up, coughing and rasping, because of the fumes. From the conversation of the staff, they suspected it was an emergency. "Patients started asking us what the commotion was about," said a nurse.
"A patient's relative suddenly rushed up the stairs and screamed that there was a fire. He took his patient down the staircase. That is when we decided enough was enough and we had to act," she said.
The nurses asked patients not to panic. The male attendants used IV stands to break the window panes. It was past 4am when they heard the fire engines.
"There were 11 patients in my ward. Only three were in a stable condition. We had no means of rescuing the rest as there was no trolley to push them towards the window. Therefore, we could escort only three patients to safety," she said. "Some of the other patients were pleading with us not leave them. But we had no option. It breaks my heart," she recalled.
"We knew we had to leave as the smoke had already started choking us. Had we stayed back we would have died along with the three patients we rescued. If only we were instructed to act quickly on our own, more lives could have been saved. I will never be able to work in a hospital after this dreadful incident," the nurse said.
Some nurses nearly died in their rescue effort. Sandhyamol PS was one such. Carbon particulates in her lungs had choked her so badly that she nearly stopped breathing. There was blood oozing from her nostrils. She saved six persons from the third-floor female urology ward, with the help of another patient, before she collapsed.
The braveheart was discharged from AMRI's Mukundapur unit on Thursday evening. "If only we had a more help, we could have saved more lives," she said.
In broken Hindi, Sandhya said that she saw fumes "gushing out in a steady stream from AC ducts" at 4am. There were 20 such ducts in each department. She was surprised that the smoke alarm and fire hooter were silent. She stepped out to enquire and saw other nurses running about. Someone screamed to her that there was a fire and they should save the patients.
Sandhya turned about and grabbed hold of the three who could walk till the second-floor landing. When she returned to her ward, she couldn't breathe. She was almost choked when a hand clutched her arm tightly. "Sister don't go without us," a patient pleaded. Time was running out. In the melee she noticed a patient walking from the VIP cabins towards the balcony. Realising that he could help her, she literally dragged him and with his help broke some window panes. They took a deep breath from one smashed window when they heard screams, one after another.
They led the patients to the air inlet and held them up to breathe. They helped the patients escape by the fire ladder, aided by male nurses. But when her time came, she couldn't feel anything. She could not reach out to grab the ladder. She collapsed. Her last thought was that she was dying. Luckily for her, some colleagues spotted her in the blinding smoke and carried her to safety.
Two male colleagues in the floor above had noticed the fumes and done the same thing as her - smash the window panes. One among them tried the fire code on the phone. It was dead.
Luckily for them, a nurse from the fourth-floor balcony came to their aid through the sky ladder. Then they were faced with a dilemma. What to do with the patients who were on ventilator? Removing the life support would kill them instantly. The "brothers" (as male nurses are referred to) had no choice. "It is a thought that will remain etched in my mind all my life," said one of them.
Did they have fire classes? "Yes, but we were not trained to deal with choking smoke. The fire code did not work. Where were the others? A couple of housekeeping attendants stuck with us nurses till the end but there was no other staff helping us. We didn't see any security-guards either," said one of them.
Sandhya, however, says a guard had helped her. Jaison Abraham, another male nurse (employed with another hospital who'd gone there to help his Keralite colleagues), says he saw a guard being stretchered out, perhaps unconscious.
The hospital authorities refused to comment on whether nurses and other staff had been asked not to tell patients about the fire. "The matter is sub-judice. It is up to the investigating agencies to look into these," said a senior official.