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The Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital command center during the blizzard.
The night of Dec. 22, Natasha Sanborn packed a bag in her Wilson home as she prepared for her shift at 7 a.m. the next day at Oishei Children’s Hospital in Buffalo.
With a blizzard barreling toward Buffalo, the longtime nurse figured she might not be able to go home. And about halfway through her shift last Friday, she got the expected news as staff was mandated to stay on site for the duration of the dangerous storm.
Sanborn, a baby nurse on the labor and delivery floor, where she takes care of newborns, didn’t leave Children’s Hospital until 3:30 p.m. Sunday.
“The patients were beautiful to us – hearing their stories coming in to the hospital and making it there and just being grateful for us being there,” she said, noting that she provided and received many hugs. “We have a job where we’re with babies at Christmas time, so it makes it even more beautiful. It’s what we do as nurses. We know we’re going to be away from our families and our families know that and it’s just a sacrifice.”
At least 40 people have died in Erie and Niagara counties due to the blizzard that paralyzed the city of Buffalo for six days.
Across Western New York, health care workers have similar stories to tell. Those who worked stayed as mandates came down for staff to remain on site. They juggled multiple jobs. They slept in outpatient areas or departments that weren’t in use. One night, Sanborn slept on a surgical gurney. Kaleida Health turned one of the auditoriums in Children’s Hospital into sleeping quarters, with inflatable mattresses set up.
Some hospitals in the area turned into warming shelters for those who lost heat. Erie County Medical Center staff initiated a rescue in front of the hospital on Christmas Eve.
Already exhausted from the Covid-19 pandemic, health care workers in the area again stepped up for the community. At least one didn’t make it through the storm: Anndel Taylor, a 22-year-old certified nurse assistant at RCA at Aurora Park, a nursing home in East Aurora, died on Christmas Eve, after her vehicle got stuck the day before as she tried to make it home to Buffalo after her shift.
Many caregivers and administrators said they’ve never seen a storm more disruptive to emergency and health care operations.
An auditorium at Oishei Children’s Hospital was set up Friday night for staff to sleep there.
“This was unlike anything that I’ve ever seen,” Kaleida Chief Administrative Officer Michael Hughes said. “In the 20 years I’ve been there, we’ve never faced these types of conditions, in terms of the severity and the gravity of what we were facing.”
With the travel bans lifted, area hospitals are now reporting an increase in patients coming into their emergency rooms as first responders work through a backlog of 911 calls and pent-up medical needs take hold. They also are now able to discharge patients who were ready to go home but unable to be safely transported during the blizzard.
Here are some stories from the region’s health care industry during the storm.
‘Beautiful thing that she did for us’
By Sunday morning, Sanborn saw the first front loader carrying snow go by Children’s Hospital as the storm ended. She let staff around her know as a way to get everyone’s hopes up.
Natasha Sanborn, a nurse on the labor and delivery floor of Oishei Children’s Hospital, takes a photo inside the hospital with Heather Parks, another nurse at the hospital.
But another staff member was about to lift up the exhausted staff even more.
On Christmas morning, one of hospital’s resident doctors walked two blocks in the snow with a massive amount of cooked food for workers. Sanborn said the doctor made pasta, vegetables, meatballs, cookies and breakfast items, such as omelets.
“I don’t know how she did it,” Sanborn said. “She cooked all this food for us Christmas morning and brought it in, so we would have food. It was just this beautiful thing that she did for us.”
A rescue at ECMC
About 9 p.m. Christmas Eve, a woman carrying a roughly 10-month-old infant entered ECMC’s main entrance.
As staff rushed to provide them care, the woman had urgent news to share: She told caregivers there were more people outside on Grider Street, trying to get into the hospital.
Caregivers at ECMC on Christmas Eve went outside the hospital to help residents seeking shelter. Among those caregivers were Colin Morrissey, right foreground, and Jillian Piniewski, in the rear left background of this image
Frontline caregivers, wearing their scrubs, rushed into the blizzard to help the civilians.
In particular, four ECMC clinicians – Dr. Ercan Sozen, a hospitalist employed by Apogee, which contracts with ECMC; Jillian Piniewski, a nurse practitioner employed by UBMD Orthopedics but who works at ECMC; registered nurse Bridgett Henry; and Colin Morrissey, a certified registered nurse anesthetist – went outside and rescued three additional adults, one of whom identified herself as the infant’s mother.
The four adults and child, ECMC said, lost power in their home on Friday. By Saturday, they had decided to seek shelter at nearby ECMC.
By Christmas Day, ECMC said it had approximately 150 civilians inside its hospital who had sought shelter from the blizzard.
Catholic Health said it also sheltered residents, especially at Sisters of Charity Hospital in Buffalo as residents in that area lost power.
Community lifts up Mercy Hospital
Aside from staggered meal and rest breaks, staff at Catholic Health also worked nonstop inside system hospitals and nursing homes.
But on Christmas Eve, workers at Mercy Hospital got a break to watch the Buffalo Bills game in Chicago. Marty Boryszak, president of the South Buffalo hospital, said the hospital streamed the game on several massive TVs in a conference room, and a facilities worker managed to run a cable to the cafeteria, where the game also was shown.
“The Bills are a good release and a good relief for a lot of us,” he said.
Mercy Hospital administrators and employees took a break on Christmas Eve to catch the Bills game, which provide a morale boost to staff stuck there during the blizzard.
The community also came to the hospital’s aid.
As the hospital started to dig out Monday, it also was running out of supplies.
Boryszak said the plant manager of Upstate Farms went into the Cheektowaga factory and brought Mercy 40 cases of milk.
Nearby Imperial Pizza provided lunch to the hospital on Monday and Tuesday.
Wegmans also chipped in with a donation, with Catholic Health leaders taking snow-capable trucks and SUVs to the West Seneca store to pick up food.
Mercy Hospital President Marty Boryszak and Laura Dewey, director of emergency management at Catholic Health, pick up a donation from Wegmans in West Seneca.
And unsolicited, nearby Doc Sullivan’s dropped off three trays each of wings and wraps, which Mercy worked into its meals Monday night.
“And as people were on edge – and people were on edge – the Monday meal I think got us like literally into Tuesday, at which point we were able to start getting people in and out,” Boryszak said. “So I think just kind of the meal piece and the community stepping up, that was a positive.”
‘We’re here for the patients’
Shawn Wells went to work at Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital at 6 a.m. last Friday and didn’t leave until 7 p.m. Monday.
He would work his regular shifts as a cook and then head up to the hospital’s emergency room, where, as a former patient care assistant, his help was more than welcomed.
He took on several jobs throughout the weekend, including housekeeping.
When they weren’t working, Wells said staff rested, joked around and tried to keep spirits up.
“We were away from our family for the holidays, which is something that none of us wanted,” said Wells, of Cheektowaga. “So we had to keep morale up, and I mean the bottom line is we’re here for the patients.”
For Wells, his Christmas plans – before being mandated to stay amid the storm – included spending time with his girlfriend. His stepmother also recently died, so he was planning to spend the holidays with his father, who instead was alone over the holidays.
But health care is a calling and the kind of selfless career that comes with personal sacrifices, he said.
“This is what we signed up for,” Wells said. “And I don’t think that anybody in health care would rather do anything else.”
Trucks deposit snow at the Central Terminal during blizzard cleanup on Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2022.
Jon Harris can be reached at 716-849-3482 or jharris@buffnews.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ByJonHarris.
Must-read local business coverage that exposes the trends, connects the dots and contextualizes the impact to Buffalo’s economy.
Reporter
I’m a Genesee County native and Syracuse University grad who covered business at the (Binghamton) Press & Sun-Bulletin and at The Morning Call in Allentown, Pennsylvania. I joined The Buffalo News in September 2021, covering the business of health care.
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Trapped in her car on Friday as a blizzard raged in Buffalo, Anndel Taylor, 22, chatted with her sisters and even sent a video of the storm. But by the next morning, her sisters could no longer reach her.
The Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital command center during the blizzard.
Caregivers at ECMC on Christmas Eve went outside the hospital to help residents seeking shelter. Among those caregivers were Colin Morrissey, right foreground, and Jillian Piniewski, in the rear left background of this image
Mercy Hospital administrators and employees took a break on Christmas Eve to catch the Bills game, which provide a morale boost to staff stuck there during the blizzard.
An auditorium at Oishei Children’s Hospital was set up Friday night for staff to sleep there.
Natasha Sanborn, a nurse on the labor and delivery floor of Oishei Children’s Hospital, takes a photo inside the hospital with Heather Parks, another nurse at the hospital.
Mercy Hospital President Marty Boryszak and Laura Dewey, director of emergency management at Catholic Health, pick up a donation from Wegmans in West Seneca.
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