The Ottawa Hospital (TOH) is all too familiar with disasters. From mass casualty incidents to disruptive cyberattacks to pandemics, its medical teams have risen to the occasion again and again, caring for patients in the most difficult of circumstances. And yet, in recent days they faced the most disruptive event in the hospital's long history, when a major electrical fire plunged one of Canada's largest hospitals into darkness and shut down even its emergency power for more than 48 hours.

The incident began late on the afternoon of Friday October 27, when one of two transformers unexpectedly failed and caught fire while the other was being replaced at TOH's General Campus. The fire knocked out power to the entire campus, and although the emergency power system immediately kicked in, it too was soon compromised by both the fire itself and the enormous amount of water firefighters used to douse it. As night fell, several floors of the 569-bed General Campus were filled with smoke, soot and water, and without power, the entire campus was plunged into near-complete darkness.

In the face of this unprecedented disaster on their home turf, the hospital team jumped into high gear, implementing the TOH's Emergency Plan and adapting on the fly to a host of urgent challenges. “We lost 120 beds in 25 minutes," recalls hospital CEO Cameron Love, who like so many other staff worked around the clock to ensure patient safety, with staff navigating crowded smoky corridors only by headlamp. “It was shocking."

TOH nurses and firefighters carried 17 tiny babies out of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and down 8 flights of stairs (the elevators were out) to waiting ambulances. Two women in labour were also carried out by firefighters, while another mom stayed and gave birth at the General during the blackout. Many other acute emergency patients awaiting surgery were moved to the Civic Campus or to other Ottawa-area hospitals, who jumped in to help out in this crisis. In total, 96 patients had to be relocated.

For much of last weekend, TOH was under a Code Red, a Code Orange and a Code Grey, all at once.

Yet as of this writing, power has been restored, and the cleanup and recommissioning of dozens of units is underway. Despite the scale and intensity of this disaster, the more than 500 TOH patients affected remained safe throughout due to the skill and commitment of thousands of health professionals.

“We had a really tough couple days," says Cameron Love, “but our team was unbelievable. I can't praise them enough. They stepped up in so many different ways. As did the fire services and all the other EMS professionals who jumped in and helped. They were incredible. Finally, I want to thank all of the other hospitals and their teams who were so valuable during this crisis, taking in so many of our acute patients -- especially the Montfort Hospital, the Queensway Carleton Hospital, the Royal Hospital and CHEO. We couldn't have gotten through this without them."

TOH still has a lot of work to do to get all operations back to normal. This will no doubt be followed by a lot of debriefing and a lot of lessons learned. But, Cameron Love feels he has learned at least one big lesson already.

​“I already knew we had a great team here, but this has really shown how truly exceptional our people are. It's one thing to have an Emergency Plan but it's another to act on it with so much professionalism and courage when the stakes are so high. You never want to have something like this happen, but if it's going happen this is how you want to respond."

​