Reporting from Erwin, Tenn.
Dr. Sean Ochsenbein, chief medical officer for Unicoi County Community Hospital, Sycamore Shoals Hospital and Johnson County Community Hospital, was the last person to be rescued off the roof of the Unicoi hospital as it was overrun with floodwaters after Helene passed through.
Ochsenbein said being back at the scene of the massive rescue mission he helped lead is “painful.”
More than 60 patients were taken by helicopter from the roof of the Unicoi hospital to safety.
“There were literally flowing rapids,” 6 to 12 inches high, “flowing within the building,” he said.
He said all of the team members, even with the rising floods, “were pushing those gurneys to get them out through the doors” of the hospital and to safety. They then had to use ladders from fire trucks to get patients on the roof, Ochsenbein said.
Ochsenbein and his team had to hoist patients up on to the roof.
“Some of us carried individual patients on our backs. We just didn’t know how much time we had,” Ochsenbein said.
Now, the efforts turn to finding the unaccounted for in the area, including some of Ochsenbein’s team members.