Healthcare workers rally to save lives in middle of carnage
As the copper-brown haze from a chemical blast moved through Beirut’s streets on Tuesday afternoon and military helicopters battled fires raging at the city’s port, medics were using their personal cars as makeshift ambulances.
Doctors and nurses immediately rallied to help residents of the Lebanese capital and hospitals already struggling with the coronavirus outbreak filled up and quickly became overwhelmed.
Medical centres had to plead for blood donations and for generators to keep the lights on make it possible for them to treat the nearly 4,000 people injured in the blast.
At least 135 people were killed in the chemical explosion that Lebanese security officials said was caused by thousands of tonnes of confiscated ammonium nitrate catching light.
It was a scene of carnage: dazed people covered in blood staggering or standing motionless on streets strewn with glass and mortar; distraught men carrying the limp body of an unconscious or dead woman; a man with a bandaged head, his face half-hidden by blood; motorcycles and army vehicles weaving through debris to rescue and ferry the hurt to hospitals; small clusters of people carrying stretchers bearing the wounded; thick black smoke billowing from the explosion site.
Victims lined the pavements next to relatives in front of American University of Beirut Medical Centre. Some were crying in pain, others for the loss of their loved ones.
At the entrance, an inconsolable man leaned against a wall, staring at the pavement. His brother-in-law was instantly killed when the mushroom cloud rose into the sky, destroying buildings and smashing windows for kilometres, including his office opposite Beirut port.
“He was still at his office working and we received a call from his colleague that Ayman got injured in the explosion,” the relative said.
“At first, we did not know how critical it was but later on when we gathered at the emergency entrance of the hospital we were told that he succumbed to a critical injury to his head.”
Harachuhee Kuyumegian, 80, lived in a neighbourhood adjacent to the port.
Her son-in-law said his sister found her covered in blood and critically injured and he drove to the elderly woman’s house and rushed her to hospital.
Pharmacies opened to treat people with light injuries and free up space for more critical cases at hospitals
The last update he received said that she was in a stable condition.
Doctors at the AUBMC emergency room said more than 400 injured people were taken there.
Those who could wait for surgery were taken to ordinary rooms, while others were taken for immediate operations.
Some died in the emergency rooms of the hospital they were taken to, according to an employee of the Lebanese Red Cross.
The pharmacist union asked all pharmacies to open to treat people with light injuries and free up space for more critical cases at hospitals.