A fire at a major hospital sent smoke pouring through an emergency room on Wednesday, injuring at least six firefighters and forcing 600 patients to be moved across the sprawling complex.
The fire began shortly before 6:30pm in a second-floor mechanical room at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan and spread to a first-floor emergency room, Fire Department spokesman Frank Dwyer said. The fire was confined to the mechanical room and the cause was not known.
Dwyer said patients were moved from the east wings to the west wings of the 12-story hospital, that has nearly 1,200 beds, as firefighters searched the building. The patients had been on the third through 11th floors.
There were no reports of injuries among patients.
Hours later, patients that had been forced to flee were being allowed back to their floors, a hospital spokesman said in a statement released at 10:55pm.
Flames from the Manhattan building were visible from the adjacent Madison Avenue, said Janet Montero, a manager at a nearby restaurant.
Jesus Ochoa, 43, a patient awaiting a surgical procedure, was with family in his eighth-floor room when an alarm went off, said his daughter Jessica Ochoa.
Jessica Ochoa said she saw and smelled smoke.
“We couldn’t breathe,” she said.
A nurse initially told the family members to stay in the room, but a hospital staffer then instructed them to put wet towels across their faces and led them to the ground floor of a nearby building, Jessica Ochoa said. She said she saw one nurse faint during a brisk but orderly evacuation.
Ellen Marakowitz rushed to the hospital from her Manhattan home after an aide for her 88-year-old mother, Helen Marakowitz, called to say she was being moved from her hospital room because of the fire.
“I’m sure she’s fine, but it would be nice to know where she is,” Marakowitz said. “My mother’s 88, and the aide is terrified, so I’m not just going to ignore them.”
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
RSS