Chicago hospital evacuated over ‘catastrophic' loss of air conditioning causing ‘oven-like' conditions
A Chicago hospital was evacuated over a 'catastrophic' loss of air conditioning that left the inside of the medical center feeling 'like an oven,' according to a report.
Weiss Memorial Hospital, in the city's Uptown neighborhood, said its aging air conditioning infrastructure had not been properly maintained by its previous owners, causing a 'catastrophic loss of the air conditioning system,' ABC 7 reported.
Hospital officials said the needed repairs will take several days, as temperatures are expected to continue to rise over the weekend.
It was not immediately clear what caused the outage, but hospital management said repairs would take a long time due to the 'aging infrastructure' of the current AC system.
The hospital said 60 of its patients had been transported to other area hospitals in the meantime. No patients remained in the hospital's care as of Tuesday night.
One patient who was discharged described the steamy conditions inside the building.
'To be honest, it's like an oven. The only thing is, they got a machine like this for air, but it's for the hallways only. But inside the rooms? No air. Just wind blowing out of the vent,' the patient, Steven Acosta, said.
Hospital staff told NBC Chicago that the center primarily serves geriatric patients between the ages of 80 to 100, for whom the heat was unbearable.
'Today was literally the worst,' one employee said. 'They literally evacuated all inpatients and ERs.'
Weiss Memorial Hospital said its outpatient areas and other areas not impacted will remain open. The hospital's emergency room is redirecting ambulances, but will stay open for any walk-in patients.
Once repairs are complete, the hospital will need to be cooled to a certain temperature before it's allowed to be reopened, management said.
A spokesperson said one chiller was back online late Tuesday to provide some relief, but all of the others remained non-operational.
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