Police suspect causes flooding at Burnaby hospital

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BURNABY (NEWS1130) – The emergency room at Burnaby General has been re-opened after an early morning flood.

It appears a police suspect ripped a sprinkler out of the ceiling.

Burnaby RCMP Cst. Karen Whitby says it started in Surrey at around 1:30 a.m. where police say the suspect stole a Jeep that he drove to the Lougheed Mall parking lot. “At that point, he then stole a Ryder transport truck which was parked just adjacent in the parking lot, then he drove that truck into all six of our police cars, totalling all of them.”

A 38-year-old man from Surrey was arrested and taken to the hospital to be assessed. Police say he jumped up on a bed and pulled out a sprinkler head.

Burnaby Assistant Fire Chief Darrell Smith says they arrived to find 2 to 3 inches of water on the floor. “It’s our city’s hospital. We take a certain amount of pride in the hospital and our guys wanted to clean it up. It was very overwhelming, the amount of water that was in there.”

The water has mainly been mopped up, but Tasleem Juma with Fraser Health says there is still a lot of cleanup to do. “In the meantime, the emergency department is open. However, because of the considerable work that we have to undertake to cleanup the process, we are advising patients to go to neighbouring hospitals and if you are experiencing an emergency please call 911.”

The Acute Care section of the hospital is still partially closed.

Juma explains how lucky the situation turned out to be as hospital staff were quick to react, and no patients or staff were hurt during the ordeal.

“We had a handful of patients that had to be moved to different areas of the hospital. However, no patients in the ER sustained further injuries because of this.”

Restoration crews will spend the coming days cleaning the water damage, and assessing what medical equipment needs to be replaced.

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