Bronx Fire: Hospitals responded with all hands on deck

NEW YORK - Dr. Ernest Patti, now a senior emergency medicine physician, has been working at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx since 1993.

"When this all first started, I didn't see any patients but I could smell smoke," he said.

Nearly three decades of experience still couldn't prepare him for what he would see approaching the emergency room doors on Sunday.

"A few minutes later, I was in the trauma bay and a paramedic came running by me and said, 'Doc, I think you're getting a lot of patients, get ready,'" Patti told FOX 5 NY.

Word of the deadly high-rise fire in Fordham Heights spread almost as quickly as the billowing smoke and flames. St. Barnabas, located just minutes away from the scene, declared a "Code D" for disaster.

"Everybody pitched in," Patti said. "It was a true effort."

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In other words, it was an all-hands-on-deck situation involving assistance from every department. 

"It started off with three crucially injured patients that required immediate intervention — CPR, intubation, things of that nature," Patti said. "While we were treating them, I could see the pediatric cases coming in, and that really tears at your heartstrings." 

St. Barnabas treated 29 fire victims for smoke inhalation. Nine people died and seven were transported to other hospitals. Thirteen patients were released and are on the road to recovery. 

The overall death toll stands at 17. The New York City Medical Examiner said all of them died from smoke inhalation.

The emergency response is finally over for Patti and his hospital staff. However, the trauma and heartbreak linger days later.

"How do you deal with it?" Patti said. "Well, you have to just say to yourself, 'I did the best that I could and I did it for the right reasons.'"

All they can do now, he added, is lean on each other for support.