Director of Papanikolaou COVID clinic for the fire: “As if a bomb had fallen”

One dead and two burnt is the account of the fire that broke out at 9 in the morning in a patient room with COVID-19on the 2nd floor of the “stone” building, which houses the 2nd Pulmonary Clinic of the “Papanikolaou” Hospital of Thessaloniki.

All three patients appear to have been treated in the same ward where the fire broke out, the causes of which remain unknown and are being investigated by the Fire Department. According to hospital sources, however, the version under consideration is that the fire was caused by a patient. The hospital’s fire safety system immediately sounded the alarm and 30 firefighters rushed to the scene with eleven vehicles.

Dense smoke covered the “stone” building and the fire brigade evacuated it, removing – with the help of the nursing staff – a total of 38 patients, transporting them to a safe place.

A charred patient was found inside the burning chamber, while the other two injured were transported to the Intensive Care Unit, the first, and to a simple ward, the second.

An administrator of the hospital told APE BPE that “a loud explosion was heard and everyone was thrown out. We saw thick black smoke coming out of the windows … we ran to the spot … there was panic. It was something new for the hospital. We have never experienced such an incident before. ” According to her, hospital officials removed oxygen cylinders from the basement where the medical equipment is stored, fearing that the fire would spread to other areas.

Firefighters were able to reduce and extinguish the fire, with the damage being significant and it will take days to repair it so that the wing can reopen.

“It’s like a bomb dropped,” said the director of the hospital’s COVID-19 clinic, Diamantis Chloros. The Operations Coordinator of the Fire Service of Northern Greece, Lieutenant General Marios Apostolidis, spoke about “big” and “difficult” fires. “A pyrothermal charge developed in the chamber, plaster fell …” he said and congratulated his colleagues for the immediate mobilization.

According to him, the causes of the fire are being investigated by the Fire Department. The Thessaloniki prosecutor was informed about the incident from the first moment. The Undersecretary of Interior, in charge of Macedonia-Thrace, was present at the scene, expressing his deep sorrow for the death of the patient, while emphasizing that the mobilization of the Fire Brigade was immediate.

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