In a fire in a hospital in Berlin-Kreuzberg, a patient got stuck in an elevator and suffered life-threatening smoke poisoning. According to previous investigations, the fire was started by a man.
The woman who was rescued from the elevator was taken by the fire brigade along with three other injured people to another hospital on Monday night, where there is a pressure chamber for the treatment of acute lung injuries. But she was able to go back to her original ward on Monday because she was feeling better.
According to previous investigations, a 48-year-old is said to have caused the fire in Urban Hospital. He is said to have set fire to two beds in a hallway on the second floor of the large hospital building at around 12:10 a.m., the police said. The alarm at the fire brigade was received at 0.33 a.m. The man is said to have then tried to set fire to a rubbish bin in the foyer. This was prevented by the firefighters who had just arrived.
Several floors and stations affected
The police arrested the 48-year-old that night and are investigating serious arson. The suspect was not a patient, but wanted to be admitted as a patient, the spokesman said.
Some hospitals have strict fire safety regulations that do not allow empty beds to stand in aisles. Whether that also applies to this clinic and why the beds were there is not yet known, said the spokesman.
The smoke spread across eight floors and several stations. “We had to evacuate the entire rescue center,” said a spokesman for the Berlin fire department at night. “It’s lucky that we were able to save the woman from the elevator and that there weren’t more serious injuries.” The flames were then extinguished relatively quickly.
According to its website, the Klinikum Am Urban has 614 beds and 12 medical departments. Around 65,000 patients are treated every year. There are around 300 doctors and 605 nurses.
