After 24 years at Takua Pa Hospital, Chintana Somnuek had earned the right to a Sunday off duty. Instead of relaxing, the head of the hospital's emergency room nurses had a solemn duty at the family home.
Phangnga's Takua Pa hospital is flooded with injured tourists.
It was the third day of funeral rites for her father, and she needed to pay respects and comfort her family. The monks had left after morning prayers and Chintana joined her relatives in idle chit-chat when they felt a rumble.
"My father's coffin started shaking," Chintana said.
There was a minor panic in the living room and, with the monks safely out of earshot, nervous laughter about their father coming back to life. But Chintana knew what had happened — she realised it was an earthquake.
An hour later a phone call came from the hospital where Chintana had worked since graduating in 1980.
"Giant wave!" Chintana heard the hospital staff shout down the phone. There was little else they could tell her: there were no reports of unusual activity, but as the chief ER nurse they felt she should be informed.
The hospital was operating on a skeleton Sunday staff: one doctor and three nurses were stationed at the ER. Chintana asked to be kept informed and left for the nearby Thai Muang Hospital to see what was happening.
"There were people starting to come in. They were injured and some of them were in a serious condition," she said.
Chintana tried calling her own emergency room for an update, but there was no signal on her mobile phone. She knew instinctively she would be needed in Takua Pa.
On the road to the hospital, the same road she had driven for 24 years, hers was the only car heading towards the disaster zone. Every other vehicle was heading in the opposite direction. "Don't go that way, the wave wiped out the whole area," she was told.
Chintana decided to take the long way around, taking more than two hours to reach the hospital.
When she arrived, she went straight to the emergency room where there were already people being treated. As the ER's head nurse, she declared a code red, a contingency strategy she and the staff had practised every three months.
Takua Pa is a small, secondary hospital in a small community and the biggest disaster plan that had been anticipated was a bus accident involving no more than 100 people.
Chintana quickly realised that the plan they had rehearsed may not be adequate to cope with the situation they faced, and they still had no idea of the scale of the disaster.
"Our emergency room can handle no more than 10 people at a time, but at least 500 people came in by 4pm that day," she said.
The small hospital seemed to get even smaller as more and more people started pouring in to get help. Chintana called for backup and asked the entire staff to come in and help. Her request was answered: all 120 of the hospital's nurses, plus a further 80 who had retired but lived nearby, would report for duty by the end of the day. The one doctor on duty was joined by his 14 colleagues.
Chintana's first problem was setting up the triage process to screen the injured and decide who was in the most urgent need of help. Under code red, every patient had to first report to the emergency room. Two nurses were assigned to the triage screening desk, and they would let only the urgent patients into the ER proper. Patients with minor injuries were sent outside, where makeshift nursing stations were set up on the lawn outside the hospital.
On Dec 26, more than 1,200 patients arrived at the hospital. At first, most had cuts and bruises, but later in the day it became apparent that the hospital would be dealing with many seriously injured people.
"Some of them had their legs chopped off, some of them came in with their heads cut open and some of them had big pieces of wood stuck in their bodies. We didn't have a plan to cope with any of this. It was completely chaotic," she said.
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Chintana ordered all the beds to be removed from the emergency room and started to lay one patient next to another on the floor. The room was immediately filled, but more patients were arriving by the minute.
She then ordered the hospital's meeting room to be cleared and put more patients there as a second emergency room, catering to another 100 of the injured.
However, it was not only the injured being taken to the hospital — there were also dead bodies starting to be brought in. The hospital could only handle 10 bodies in its small morgue, so they contacted Wat Yan Yao and asked them to store all the bodies there.
"None of us could get any rest. All of us worked non-stop. We were exhausted, but we had to do it," Chintana said.
Going without sleep did not bother Chintana or the other nurses because they were used to 48-hour shifts — Chintana said it was part of their job.
From Dec 26 to Jan 1, at least 10,000 people went to the hospital to get treated for the wounds and injuries suffered in the tsunami.
Seriously injured patients were transported to Surat Thani Hospital, the closest of the larger hospitals.
The hospital had two ambulances, but ambulances from other provinces and rescue trucks were quick to lend support. The day after the tsunami struck, helicopters began transporting those with life-threatening injuries to Chumphon.
Because of the professional care given by the staff, only five patients died at Takua Pa Hospital.
There was little relief from the exhaustion of dealing with panicking patients, and Chintana was proud of the way her staff conducted themselves. But they did find one moment of relief, holding a small New Year's Eve party to raise the patients' spirits.
After New Year's Day, the staff were able to get some rest when outside help started to arrive. There were medical teams and volunteers from other countries pouring in to lend a hand.
Almost 10 unforgettable days after the incident started, things started to get back to normal at the hospital with no new cases coming in. They were able to treat as many patients as possible and made sure everyone in a serious condition was transferred to other hospitals.
Chintana returned home to discover that her father had already been cremated. She made a quick visit to attend a ceremony for him, but her mind was on her work back at the hospital. For her, nothing is more important than saving people's lives.
"After the tsunami, I realised that we can never be ready for this kind of event. It was big, it was unexpected, but I will always be there to ensure the situation is well handled," she said. n
TODAY
Now aged 56, Chintana has become the head nurse of the hospital and plans to work there until she retires.
“The 2004 tsunami taught me a great lesson. Treating people was not the biggest obstacle we faced — what seemed the most difficult to me was how to handle the crowds who were in a panic,” she said.
Moving into a more administrative area, she has seen the hospital expand since the tsunami. A five-storey building for patients with 120 beds has been built, and there is a new X-ray unit and psychiatric ward; there was great demand for both after the disaster.
Pharmaceutical companies also donated a lot of medication, and new equipment has also arrived.
The hospital is now bigger and better equipped, and the number of staff has increased as well. Today there are 160 nurses, 18 doctors and more medical support staff, including a radiologist and psychologist.
Some of the original nurses resigned because they felt they couldn’t handle another major incident like the tsunami. But those staff who are still there are now better prepared to cope with a large-scale disaster.
Chintana has helped oversee the introduction of a disaster prevention plan designed to handle an event on the scale of the 2004 tragedy. The hospital can now cope with 10,000 injured people and the staff rehearse every three months with other rescue teams, hospitals and clinics in the area.
“I don’t get involved with treating patients any more, but I will always be here to make sure that my staff know how to get the situation under control if anything like that happens again.” n