NYU Hospital Worker Watches Sandy Destruction While Visiting Om - FOX 42: Omaha News, Sports and Weather; kptm.com |

NYU Hospital Worker Watches Sandy Destruction While Visiting Omaha

Melina Matthes

OMAHA (KPTM) -In New York, NYU Medical Center evacuated when a back-up generator failed during Tropical Storm Sandy.

 One doctor was stuck in Omaha watching as more than 200 patients were forced out of the building. 

The nurse's mother about the power of social media during a disaster.  

"She would've been there in a heart beat if she could've figured out a way to do it."

Corliss Lovstad felt powerless watching her daughter struggle.

"Your child hurts, you hurt and to see her it was kind of a mixed feeling for me to see her distraught that she wasn't there and couldn't do what she was trained to do."

36-year-old Jody Kieffer is a second year pediatric resident at New York University Medical Center.

She was visiting family in Omaha when tropical storm sandy made landfall.She first learned her hospital lost power via text message.

 "All the text said was, I just ran down 19 flights of stairs and back up nine and we're starting to carry babies out.   She told me that when they were coming down the nine flights of stairs with the babies, there was a medical student stationed on each landing with a flashlight and she said that her friend said you could hear people saying ok take another step, take another step, take another step and somehow they got those little ones out."

Lovstad and her daughter stayed glued to the television, watching the waves crash across the city.

But they say they learned the most, the quickest, thru social media. And it wasn't just the facts, it was a more personalized stand point.

"It's not the same as hearing someone say, I am carrying a baby down the steps, nine flights of a hospital with a flashlight.  The personal side of it was much more vibrant and much more real compared thru the social media."

One such post says, "The medical staff rushed into action with no time to waste."

The babies were breathing by a process called bagging, where the nurses had to literally pump air into the babies lungs by squeezing a tiny little bag. This was done repeatedly all while going down nine flights of stairs in total darkness.

"I think in the midst of it all, you don't really have time to think about my own safety, you just do the job you're trained to do."

 Roughly 200 patients, about 45 of whom are in critical care, were moved out of the hospital.  Officials say nearly 24 ambulances came to their rescue. All of those patients were moved to a number of nearby hospitals. No one was hurt.