LEBANON – A laboratory fire broke out at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center’s Williamson Research Building early Wednesday morning, causing no injuries but potentially delaying lab test turnaround.
Personnel from the Lebanon Fire Department arrived at 1 Medical Center Drive at 6:32 a.m., six minutes after a fire alarm activation in the Williamson Research Building, according to a department news release.
The Lebanon Communications Center received a 911 call from the facility reporting black smoke coming from a second-floor laboratory, and the incident was upgraded to a first-alarm fire response, the release said.
Audra Burns, director of media relations at Dartmouth Health, said in an email to the Valley News that the fire started on the fourth floor when a lab analyzer caught fire. No one was injured.
Additional personnel cleared a medical emergency they were committed to before responding to the research building.
“Upon investigation, firefighters located a fire involving a piece of laboratory equipment within an approximately 26,000-square-foot laboratory area,” the release said.
The building’s automatic sprinkler system activated and contained the fire to the area of origin.
“A significant smoke condition remained throughout the affected area,” despite the sprinkler system’s successful containment of the fire, the release said.
The Lebanon Fire Department was assisted by the Hanover, Hartford and Windsor fire departments. The Lebanon Fire Department is investigating the cause of the fire.
Crews are currently working to mitigate flooding and smoke damage in the impacted areas.
“Priority zones (are being) established to get critical lab space back up and running,” Burns said.
The microbiologic lab performs standard testing on things like blood cultures and streptococcus samples. The hospital is still evaluating the extent of the contamination of patients’ medical samples, Burns said.
“Patients scheduled for lab work or who are expecting results may be contacted if they need to reschedule or will receive a delayed response,” she said. Burns said the medical center is “working to limit the impact on patients.”
