Dustin Ballard called us Monday morning. He lives in Terra Linda, a community in San Rafael, about 35 miles from Santa Rosa. Mr. Ballard, an emergency physician at the San Rafael Kaiser Permanente San Medical Center, recalled his experience responding to the fires.

My experience was on the receiving end of the evacuation of the San Rafael Kaiser hospital in the emergency department by some very brave and reactive individuals who grabbed up all the patients from the emergency department, as flames were flickering through the parking structure across the street from them; drove them down by private car to the emergency department in San Rafael Kaiser in Terra Linda; and then scooped up the 70 or so inpatients and did the same. And then on our end, there were an entire surge of staff, from nurses to techs to doctors, from all over the hospital, all specialties arriving to organize these patients and get them put into beds upstairs or safely sent home.

It was a remarkable but also heartbreaking situation as we met with patients who were scared about their families or their loved ones or their homes.

Doctors that were working not knowing if and when they’d be able to get back to their homes up north. So truly, a remarkable situation that I just wanted to share because it was inspiring to see medical professionals and people coming together, everyone remaining calm and doing the best for people who had been suddenly struck by a very terrible circumstance.

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‘Our neighbor was relentless in trying to wake us up’