THIBODAUX, La. — A Thibodaux hospital's ICU unit temporarily lost power to its backup generator amid high winds from Hurricane Ida, forcing hospital staff to manually push air in and out of patients' lungs while they were being transported to another unit via stairwell, according to our partners at the Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate.
Doctors at Thibodaux Regional Health System in Lafourche Parish had to resort to manually bagging patients, meaning they were pushing air in and out of their lungs by hand, as they transported them to other floors in the hospital.
State Reps. Jerome Zeringue and Tanner Magee have been in close contact with the hospital and the doctor that reported the outage who described the conditions as "Katrinaesque".
Some patients were transferred out of ICU and to the hospital's post-anesthesia care unit using the hospital's stairwell, according to Nola.com
According to the story, the cause of the outage was said to be "high winds".
The state's chief health officer, Dr. Joe Kanter, said the other generators at the hospital are in running order, according to Nola.com
Parish officials tell WWL-TV that the generator was restarted after the patients were evacuated to other wings.
