Community Corner

Tent Replaces Danbury Hospital's Emergency Room

After a water pipe burst inside Danbury Hospital Sunday, the hospital closed its Emergency Room and set up a tent called a Mobile Field Hospital while the problems are fixed. Early reports said sewage flowed in the hospital, but Hospital Spokeswoman Andrea Rynn said that never happened. The problem was caused by water.

While the hospital is somewhat sleepy at 5:30 a.m., the front parking area at the emergency room doors is bustling as state Department of Health workers build the mobile triage center.

The Hospital is undergoing a $150 million renovation, but Rynn said the water plumbing leak was unrelated to that work. She said water flowed into several rooms and into part of the emergency room. She said there will be no interruption of service. People who show up for the emergency room will visit the mobile hospital and be sent to various other locations in the hospital for treatment.

The mobile hospitals were purchased by then Gov. M. Jodi Rell after Ottilie W. Lundgren, 94, of Oxford, caught anthrax in 2001. The mobile hospitals are designed to give physicians a temporary hospital to handle patients when contamination is possible at a hospital or emergency scene.


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