Mayday on May Day at St. Joe’s
Forty years ago, a major fire forced the evacuation of more than 500 patients
Local hospital administrators have been desperately marshalling resources to deal with increasing numbers of COVID-19 patients.
They’ve cancelled surgeries, reassigned personnel and freed up hundreds of beds.
And while the pandemic response is unprecedented in scope, it’s interesting to think back to what was probably the biggest health care logistical challenge in Hamilton before now.
Forty years ago this week, a major fire broke out at St. Joseph’s Hospital and more than 500 patients were evacuated from the Charlton Avenue building that remained closed for two weeks. The evacuation went smoothly with emergency responders flooding the city from as far away as Toronto and Niagara Falls. No patients were injured save for one who was reported to have had a heart attack and died. Five firefighters were treated for smoke inhalation.
But the ‘Mayday on May Day’ remains one of the most memorable experiences in local hospital history and has become a guidepost for disaster planning ever since. May 1, 1980 was a warm and sunny day and started with the best of intentions. But, the early taste of summer was suddenly interrupted by screaming sirens and billowing smoke.
St. Joe’s physician Dr. Peter Knight had just finished performing hernia surgery and was waiting for his next operation.
“It was 9 o’clock in the morning and I was sitting in the surgeons’ room and the fire alarm was going,” the retired surgeon said in an interview. “We just sat there because false alarms were always going off … But I began to get fed up and opened the door to see the corridor was full of smoke.” The next he k new firefighters were running through the hallways and staff and volunteers were called upon to help patients leave the building.
“We couldn’t use the elevators so we had to drag patients on beds and mattresses down the stairs. It was not easy,” he said.
The electrical fire began in a basement boiler room and moved into the walls and ceilings, sending smoke throughout the building.
Surgeries were cancelled except for two major operations that could not be halted. Nurses put wet towels around doors to keep out smoke. Paul Kuzyk remembers hearing sirens and heading to the hospital to find “emergency vehicles everywhere. There were ambulances from all kinds of different places — even an ambulance bus.”
There were hundreds of emergency responders. In addition to ambulances, city buses, fire department vehicles and mail trucks were used to transport patients to other hospitals.
Mike Jackson was a rookie Hamilton firefighter who was off duty that day. After hearing about the fire, he rushed over and helped fill air bottles for his colleagues who were fighting flames and managing smoke inside the building.
“They had every rig in the city there. Some of the guys were dropping like flies because it was so hot in there.”
Jackson, who retired in 2009 and is president of the Hamilton Fire Department Pensioners Association, said the 1997 Plastimet fire was the biggest event of his 30-year career. But the St. Joe’s evacuation definitely makes his list of memorable experiences.
After extensive repairs, the hospital finally reopened on May 14 and patients were able to return.
One last note: I learned about the 40th anniversary of the evacuation from David Simpson of the Headof-the-Lake Historical Society. The group planned to host a presentation about it on May 1, but the event had to be cancelled because of COVID-19.
In other words: A discussion about one health-care emergency was disrupted by the ongoing experience of another one.
A note from Dieppe
I received a moving email after a story I wrote about the April 17 passing of Ken Curry, the last Royal Hamilton Light Infantry veteran of the ill-fated Second World War raid of Dieppe.
Franck Sorel lives in the French coastal community, and is a bagpiper with the Normandy Highlands Pipe Band. He wanted me to “send our sincere condolences to his family” and say “how grateful we are for all the kids that landed on 19 August 1942.”
To pay tribute, he went to the Canadian War Cemetery south of Dieppe, where victims of the raid are buried, to play the lament “Hector the Hero … for all his war friends and of course for him.” It was a heartfelt gesture especially during a COVID-19 lock down.
The death of Curry, at 97, is another sign of the passage into history of the ‘Greatest Generation.’ He was one of more than 580 ‘Riley’ soldiers who took part in the disastrous military operation that killed 197 RHLI soldiers. A total of 174 were captured as POWs, with Curry among them.
Post script
Last week, I wrote about Bill Milne’s 10-kilogram cast iron weight that was used to tie down horses that pulled ‘Pure Milk Company’ milk carts in Hamilton more than 100 years ago. Bill didn’t know what the weight was called. Well, I’ve since learned the objects have a history going back to cowboy times and were sometimes called ‘higglers.’ So the next time you feel someone is holding you back, you can call the person a ‘higgler.’