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Rapid response

June 7, 2024

HSPP team quickly contains fire

A fire in UVA Hospital was quickly contained thanks to the quick action of the UVA Health Clinical staff and Health System Physical Plant team.

The event occurred in the Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU) on Saturday, April 28 when a piece of clinical equipment being fed oxygen from the room headwall caught on fire, according to Associate Director of Health System Physical Plant Nina Green.

The HSPP Zone 1 North shift crew — Senior HVAC Mechanic Stuart Merridew and Master Maintenance Technicians Goran Ivanic and Fred Elliott — responded immediately to the fire alert. Merridew and Ivanic responded to the floor within minutes, helping evacuate the patients in adjacent rooms and coordinating with staff to turn off the oxygen feeding the room headwall effectively extinguishing the fire. During this time, Elliott met the fire department in the lobby to escort them to the scene, and then, assisted Charlottesville Fire Department to shut down power in the affected room in an orderly manner preventing any further possible fire events.

“Our shift team saved lives, prevented further injuries to our patients, and damage to our building and its systems,” said Green. “In addition to our shift team, we had a few other individuals who were instrumental in helping in the restoral of systems and preparing the wing for patients to return.”

Zone 1 South Plumber Supervisor Dickie Williams immediately headed into the hospital to support the shift team and once on-site, he quickly capped the medical gas ports in the affected room, allowing for full restoration of the medical gas system which prevented the need to move additional critically ill patients to other locations in the hospital.

Zone 1 North Manager Mike Light, who was working with his team in Battle Building at the time, quickly diverted resources to support the clean-up and walked the adjacent units to verify that power was fully restored.

Construction Project Associate Otis Hackett was called on to contain the affected room for the various teams that would be conducting investigations on the event and to coordinate the patching and painting of the affected wing. Hackett quickly pooled his painting resources from other projects and had the entire area, to include patient rooms and corridors, repaired by the end of the day on Monday so patients could be moved in on Tuesday.

Additional staff who assisted included the Fire Crew who responded to the site to reset the fire system and helped with replacing the used fire extinguishers. Once the fire system was reset, Assistant Director for Engineering and HS Renovations Dan Cardwell controlled the smoke and the residue from the fire extinguishers through overrides on the air handler units for the area.

“It was amazing to see how all the FM resources came together, alongside the Medical Center staff to control what could have been a catastrophic event,” Green said.


About the author

Jane Centofante
Communications senior generalist
UVA Facilities Management
(434) 982-5846
janecentofante@virginia.edu