Letters
A tragic day
Editor:
Your article about the Our Lady of Angels’ fire in Wednesday’s paper (Dec. 3) instantly brought me back to that day.
I graduated from De Paul University with a BS in Chemistry and was employed as a Medical Technologist at St. Anne’s Hospital; I typically worked in the chemistry, hematology, microbiology and blood bank areas.
Jerry and I were married on Nov. 27 (four days before the fire) and took a quick honeymoon trip to Wisconsin, returning on Sunday evening; Jerry would return to De Paul on Monday morning and I was going to spend the week getting our new apartment organized before heading back to the lab on Dec. 8.
I received a phone call from the lab director shortly after the fire and she asked that I come in to work immediately as they needed the entire lab staff on duty.
And there I spent 18-hr-days screening new blood donors, calling blood in from neighboring hospitals, and trying to keep up with the constant requests for blood and plasma for those burn victims in the ER (emergency room) and OR (operating room).
There was a School of Nursing at St. Anne’s which was transformed from a happy place of aspiring nurses to one of horror.
The nurses’ gym became the ER and the hospital parking lot became a morgue.
Frantic parents were running between the victims calling out the names of their children and praying for a response.
Medical personnel attending the victims moved swiftly and were so kind, caring and compassionate.
Many times, when they removed a child’s shirt or pants, sheets of charred skin came with it. There were screams, cries and moans everywhere.
The suffering continued as the survivors were moved to hospital rooms where they needed around-the-clock attention.
Ordinarily I loved going on the floor and doing blood draws. It was a time I chatted with the patients to put them at ease and they called me “dracula” or “the vampire” and we laughed.
That changed when I was asked to go to a burn victim’s room to draw blood.
I felt such mixed emotions—knowing that I was helping in their recovery and yet adding to their monumental pain with yet another needle stick.
Many of the patients died from their injuries, others remained in the hospital for weeks, some for months.
Even after release, many would have continuing hospitalizations for skin grafts and repairs.
Many lives were changed forever by a nightmare that never should have happened.
OLA changed that fateful day as did St. Anne’s Hospital and its personnel and the entire city of Chicago.
It became the wake-up call for needed inspections and fire codes for schools—a tragic day that will never be forgotten.
Joan Van Lancker, Green Valley
Your article about the Our Lady of Angels’ fire in Wednesday’s paper (Dec. 3) instantly brought me back to that day.
I graduated from De Paul University with a BS in Chemistry and was employed as a Medical Technologist at St. Anne’s Hospital; I typically worked in the chemistry, hematology, microbiology and blood bank areas.
Jerry and I were married on Nov. 27 (four days before the fire) and took a quick honeymoon trip to Wisconsin, returning on Sunday evening; Jerry would return to De Paul on Monday morning and I was going to spend the week getting our new apartment organized before heading back to the lab on Dec. 8.
I received a phone call from the lab director shortly after the fire and she asked that I come in to work immediately as they needed the entire lab staff on duty.
And there I spent 18-hr-days screening new blood donors, calling blood in from neighboring hospitals, and trying to keep up with the constant requests for blood and plasma for those burn victims in the ER (emergency room) and OR (operating room).
There was a School of Nursing at St. Anne’s which was transformed from a happy place of aspiring nurses to one of horror.
The nurses’ gym became the ER and the hospital parking lot became a morgue.
Frantic parents were running between the victims calling out the names of their children and praying for a response.
Medical personnel attending the victims moved swiftly and were so kind, caring and compassionate.
Many times, when they removed a child’s shirt or pants, sheets of charred skin came with it. There were screams, cries and moans everywhere.
The suffering continued as the survivors were moved to hospital rooms where they needed around-the-clock attention.
Ordinarily I loved going on the floor and doing blood draws. It was a time I chatted with the patients to put them at ease and they called me “dracula” or “the vampire” and we laughed.
That changed when I was asked to go to a burn victim’s room to draw blood.
I felt such mixed emotions—knowing that I was helping in their recovery and yet adding to their monumental pain with yet another needle stick.
Many of the patients died from their injuries, others remained in the hospital for weeks, some for months.
Even after release, many would have continuing hospitalizations for skin grafts and repairs.
Many lives were changed forever by a nightmare that never should have happened.
OLA changed that fateful day as did St. Anne’s Hospital and its personnel and the entire city of Chicago.
It became the wake-up call for needed inspections and fire codes for schools—a tragic day that will never be forgotten.
Joan Van Lancker, Green Valley
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