On Thursday morning there were two power outages at Vienna General Hospital, which lasted for a few minutes. The reason for this was a technical defect in a transformer station operated by Wiener Netze on the hospital premises. A short circuit, says Herwig Wetzlinger, director of the subsidiary AKH Vienna.
After the defect occurred, the hospital put the emergency generators into operation and supplied the clinical areas with emergency power. Vital areas, such as operating theaters or life-support machines, were not affected by the two short power outages. However, the failures were still noticeable, for example with the CTs, it is said.
bailout
During the power outages, the AKH also imposed a rescue ban, says Wetzlinger. This means that no ambulance was allowed to drive to the AKH. “While the power outage was being repaired, we mightn’t also take care of the rescues. That’s why the ambulances were diverted to other hospitals,” says Wetzlinger.
The problem at the transformer station has now been resolved. “We’re back on the public grid,” says Wetzlinger. Ambulances are now allowed to drive to the AKH once more.
gas smell
Shortly following the power outages, another ailment occurred at the AKH: A smell of gas was noticed in the hospital. The line from which the gas may have leaked was turned off late Thursday morning, says Wetzlinger. However, the children’s ward had not been evacuated – as had previously been feared.
“The police are still on site and are looking for the cause of the possible gas leak.”
belt locked
Wetzlinger says it is unlikely that the reason for this was the technical defect in the transformer station. These are locations that are farther away.
Meanwhile, the fire brigade suspects that the gas did not escape in the AKH but somewhere outside and the smell got into the hospital through the window. The belt was closed late Thursday morning to search for the leak.
