Herculean efforts of unsung heroes helped hospitals withstand Goliath

Jan. 24--Medical facilities around Lubbock assembled operation plans for Winter Storm Goliath several days in advance.

By Saturday, Dec. 26, hospital supervisors began calling their staffs and gathering a head count and making plans as the temperatures turned colder and snow began accumulating.

But the storm still overwhelmed.

For some, the weather preparations started even earlier.

When Teresa Clifford reported to work on Christmas morning, she was expecting the snow to delay her return home.

Throughout the week, the Covenant Health campus was buzzing about "what ifs" associated with the snow and setting plans in place in case the predicted heavy snowfall became a reality.

Before heading in to her regularly scheduled 12-hour shift that Friday, Clifford grabbed an extra change of clothes.

The next day she realized she should have grabbed more.

As the largest forecasted blizzard in more than three decades began blanketing the city of Lubbock and surrounding region, Clifford was one of countless health employees around Lubbock hospitals making arrangements to fill her post while the storm passed in case relief staff weren't able to make their way to the hospital.

For Alphonza Duvall, crew leader in the Food & Nutrition Department at University Medical Center, that meant stepping up to supervise all elements of kitchen operations.

He got to work at 4 a.m. Sunday morning and because someone had called in sick, was already prepared to work a double shift.

At 2 p.m., Duvall got a phone call from his supervisor. Road conditions and snow drifts were getting worse. Plans were being made for shifts the following day and Duvall was the only chef available. Leaving the kitchen out of operation was not an option with about 1,000 employees stranded or working at the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center or UMC plus patients and their families.

He bustled about the kitchen preparing as much as he could for the entire UMC and HSC facilities. Thankfully, he didn't have to do it alone, he said. A kitchen staff of just more than 20 people helped out as much as they could and took up duties they wouldn't have worried about, otherwise, he said. But he was the only chef.

Kitchen preparation began the Wednesday prior to the storm. The hospital usually receives four food truck deliveries per week, said Heidi Hodges, Duvall's supervisor in the Food & Nutrition Department. The last delivery included extra food to be stretched through the entire week.

"Yeah, we had to improvise," Duvall said. "We ran out of a few things and we had to step in and substitute something else."

At one point, one of the five food stations within the cafeteria had to be shut down, he said.

The UMC/HSC cafeteria wasn't the only one stretching resources.

Walt Cathey, president of Covenant Medical Center, said the administrative staff arranged food for everybody each day they were snowed in at each Covenant Health facility.

They called The United Family and ordered 200 pizzas one day and baked them in the ovens in the Covenant cafeterias, he said.

While staffers diligently worked to keep everyone fed, a few floors above the cafeteria in the Covenant Medical Center facility, arrangements were being made for the staff unable to get back home.

"We were consolidated to one floor," said Jerid Nichols, an RN in the Surgical ICU at Covenant Health.

Nichols braved road conditions to get back home to his daughter, but other staff members began packing bags and preparing for overnight stays.

UMC's Clifford was one of them.

Clifford said she declined offers to sleep on the unoccupied patient beds so others could make use of them.

She spent five consecutive days working her shifts and sleeping on an air mattress in her office.

Hazardous weather began rolling in by Friday evening and flight services were being disrupted because of the looming blizzard.

She slept in her office for the first time that week on Friday night and then stayed put, unsure if she'd be able to make it back in on Saturday.

She finally left the hospital on Tuesday evening, Clifford said.

"Our team was offered to stay overnight in preparation so they would not have to drive in the extreme weather," wrote Marla Daniels, chief nursing officer and director of quality/risk management for Grace Medical Center in an emailed statement to A-J Media. "All non-clinical staff were canceled for their safety."

Similar precautions and sleeping arrangements were made at UMC for its staff, said Mary Ellen Holland, house supervisor.

UMC employees worked with patients and their families to get as many people released as possible before the storm, she said.

"Our social services department was working really hard with patients getting discharged while patients were somewhat safe," Holland said. "Patients couldn't get out that lived far out of town so we just kept them and tried to take care of them."

Transfers were minimal because several roads out of town were closed, she said. The volume of patients stayed relatively steady through those few days.

Cots were set up for employees in the McInturff Center for people who couldn't or didn't want to drive back home and some people slept in unoccupied patient beds, she said.

On Sunday night, Duvall made use of one of them. He wrapped up his kitchen duties around 11 p.m. On a normal day, he probably could have left earlier, he said.

He didn't sleep long, though. Duvall was back in the kitchen by 3:30 a.m. prepping meals for breakfast and finally left the hospital Monday around 7 p.m.

"I just took a power shower and just rested," Duvall said.

He's been a chef for 25 years and said he's used to working long hours.

Brent Magers, executive dean of the HSC School of Medicine and CEO of Texas Tech Physicians, said the storm brought out a different side of people.

He heard stories of UMC/HSC employees and random Lubbock citizens going to great lengths to help each other.

A handful of those people from HSC include Dr. Jack Dyer, who walked to UMC from his home then walked to and from Covenant in the snow; Dr. Helena Wojciechowski, who stayed three consecutive nights on shift to tend to patients; and Dr. Susan Holmes, who cut her vacation short to make sure patients had prescriptions, Magers said. He also heard about employees loaning warm clothing to those who were unprepared.

Countless good Samaritans advertised free rides for strangers on social media and made arrangements with staff at both UMC and Covenant to give rides to medical staff for shift changes -- many asked for nothing in return.

On Monday, several members of the Flatlanders Jeep Club were among them.

The club stepped in to help get hospital staff to work and chronically ill patients to their necessary appointments, said Heath Johnson, founder of the club.

"We were working with Covenant and UMC," Johnson said. "They would contact us if they had a nurse who'd been on for 48 hours and couldn't leave. We'd pick them up and get them home."

Then they'd turn around and make another trip for somebody else, he said.

Zane Ellis, nurse manager at Covenant Health, said he braved the roads from Idalou in his Ford F-150 pickup and tried to be at work by 5 a.m. each day so he could field calls from staff who needed rides.

Ellis, after making several trips to and from different neighborhoods around the city, even made a trip back to Idalou to bring in co-workers.

An unexpected benefit to the crisis was getting to know other Covenant employees.

"(I met) a lot of wonderful people," Ellis said.

Roads around the city were bumpy and slippery and countless people kept getting stuck. Ellis got stuck at least once in the massive snowdrifts.

Ambulances and other emergency vehicles also kept getting stuck while traveling around the city.

City leaders claimed that hospitals, EMS and fire stations were a first priority for snow clearance during the storm, according to a story from A-J Media archives.

Officials with Covenant, UMC and Grace Health System said they didn't notice. Staff members from each facility, with some help from a few independent citizens, worked to clear snow around their own campuses.

Daniel Villarreal, Brent Repstine and Anthony Sanchez said they and co-workers worked to clear the parking lots around Grace Clinic and Grace Hospital.

Villarreal, a maintenance technician for Grace, said they worked Sunday, Monday and Tuesday salting and shoveling parking lots to pave a safe way for visitors and staff.

They used their resources to capacity and hired private individuals to help, said Repstine, groundskeeper with Grace Health System.

Sanchez, a maintenance supervisor, said he helped clear the parking lots at the hospital.

Repstine said they're still regularly salting because runoff from the snow piles keeps melting and refreezing overnight.

Many hospital employees, like Duvall, handled the extra shifts and duties without complaint.

"It was just a regular day for me," he said. "I had to do a little bit more work but it was just a regular day."

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