Heavy rain leaks through hospital roof

During a major afternoon rainstorm on Friday, August 7, water poured down through the roof of an old part of Hot Springs County Memorial Hospital that was under construction. The leaked water reached a room where the CT and MRI equipment was. Hospital CEO Margie Molitor was out of town and in her place Nina Landis handled the situation.

Landis said, “As you know it rained on Friday and we are in the middle of construction so the roof is being redone and we ended up with a little water in the building. All the water has been cleaned up and everything is getting dried out and we are back up and fully operational. The MRI machine was not damaged, and the CT machine was not damaged either. All of our equipment is fully functional now.” 

At first, the CT machine was down and the only service they had to divert was actual CT scans. Landis said, “We never diverted regular hospital patients. It was only those who needed a CT scan and that was because, with the water in the room, we had to make sure that the room was dried out so we could turn that machinery back on.”

During the down time trauma patients were reported taken to Worland as a precaution.

The room this occurred in was in the old part of the building. Landis does not know if there will be an insurance claim. She said, “It’s probably too early to say.” 

Landis added, “The big thing is that we are back up and are fully operational and we got that taken care of pretty quickly. Everybody worked hard together to make sure that we were back up and running.” 

Regarding if there are any potential liability issues with the construction company Sletten who is doing the construction work on the hospital, Landis said, “Not that I’m aware of.”