I was Director of Nursing Services at Harrisburg Hospital during the Three Mile Island accident. It was a coincidence that hours before it occurred, I was having dinner at Alfred’s Victorian Restaurant in Middletown of all places, blissfully ignorant of what was about to transpire.
During the next few days, leadership and other hospital personnel who remained in the area were engaged in a frenzy of activity, our situation made more critical because a majority of nurses had immediately left town with their children, causing an extreme staffing shortage.
It was a frightening time for all of us; we were worried not only for our patients, but our own well-being, too.
I and other key individuals spent time each day at the Dauphin County Courthouse meeting with Civil Defense leaders. They provided important communications and updates, listened to our concerns, and together we developed and coordinated plans for a possible mandatory evacuation of patients. We mobilized resources and embarked on efforts to find facilities willing and able to receive our patients, and appropriate means of transporting them if things worsened.
It was a frightening time for all of us; we were worried not only for our patients, but our own well-being, too. The only time I wasn’t present was a period of about 5 hours when I packed up my two children and drove them to my mother’s in suburban Philadelphia. Ironically, where she resided in Drexel Hill also may have been endangered if a total meltdown had occurred, but removing them from the Harrisburg area gave me comfort, however illusory.
For several days, at every shift change, we would evaluate our patients to determine the severity of each one’s condition, and in what manner we would transport them to another designated facility considered a safe distance away from the area.
In retrospect, that may not have been the wisest assumption to make.
Interestingly, the head of Met-Ed at the time, Jack Herbein, was a neighbor of ours, and I saw that his wife and children remained at home. Thinking that if he had sufficient confidence in the situation to have his family stay, I felt less panicky. In retrospect, that may not have been the wisest assumption to make.
Of course, to this day, controversy still remains as to health consequences this accident may or may not have created, and statistics do not all agree. Since Harrisburg Hospital was 9 miles from the epicenter, I was surprised when the physician in charge of our Nuclear Medicine Department commented to me a few weeks later that the Geiger counters in the department registered no elevation in radiation during the entire emergency.
Tanya