Fire in LVR Hospital Bonn police investigate suspected arsonist
Bonn · One day after the fire at the LVR Hospital in Bonn, the police have identified a possible suspect. In the meantime, the hospital has to plan for the care of its patients. It will take months to repair the damage caused by the fire.
The police are now going on the assumption that the fire at the LVR Hospital in Bonn was a case of deliberate arson. According to a report from police spokesman Simon Rott on Friday, a 46-year-old patient at the clinic is strongly suspected of having set the fire. The man, who Rott described as "not fit for questioning", is said to have confided in a hospital doctor and confessed to the crime, according to GA information. According to the police spokesman, the suspect was brought before a judge on Friday.
A bed on the second floor in a closed ward caught on fire, and was found near the escape route door. Investigators are looking into how the bed caught fire in the first place and how it could have ended up near the escape route. Patients are not allowed to carry objects such as lighters with them in the locked ward. According to the state building regulations, the bed should also not have been placed in this area as it creates a fire hazard.
Fire department rescued patient from smoke-filled area
While the investigators are looking into the details of the fire, the LVR Hospital now has to renovate the completely burnt-out ward and take care of the patients. Klaus-Werner Szesik, Commercial Director of the LVR Clinic, estimates the damage at between 300,000 and 500,000 euros following yesterday's inspection of the ward. “Right now, we expect the renovation work to take around three months," says Szesik. It will probably be possible to reopen the ward at the beginning of March or April.
As the second floor was also engulfed in smoke during the fire, more than 100 patients had to be evacuated from the smoky area on Thursday morning. According to fire department spokesman Ralf Krahforst, three of them had to be taken to nearby hospitals with severe smoke inhalation and four with minor smoke inhalation. The fire department rescued one patient from the smoke-filled area, according to Krahforst.
Hospital corridor paints a "picture of horror”
The LVR can now use the rooms on the second floor again, but only with masks on, said LVR spokesperson Tillman Daub. However, the ward where the fire broke out shows a "picture of horror". The corridor where the fire raged is blackened with soot. The hospital bed that caught fire is now a battered steel skeleton, half-ruined and abandoned. A scenario that is pretty much the exact opposite of a tidy, white hospital corridor. For the LVR Hospital, the destruction caused by fire and smoke also means an organizational challenge.
According to Markus Banger, Medical Director of the hospital, many patients had to be transferred to other wards at the facility. Up to and including Monday morning, the LVR Hospital also had to temporarily suspend psychiatric care in the emergency services. "The surrounding hospitals, Bonn University Hospital, the LVR Hospitals in Cologne and Düren and the Marienborn Hospital in Zülpich have assured us of their full support in patient care for the next few weeks," said Banger.
(Orig. text: Jonas Dirker / Translation: Carol Kloeppel)
