EARTHQUAKE 5.8

Todd and I have survived our first LA earthquake "shaken" but unharmed.  

Our earthquake experience:

I was at Cedars-Sinai and had just finished our morning ICU rounds.  We were sitting in the conference room with all of the residents making sure that everyone knew what needed to be done for each patient that day.  At first, I thought that someone was just shaking the conference table.  Once it didn't stop but instead got more intense, we all realized it was an earthquake.  The other fellow, who has lived in California his entire life and experienced a number of earthquakes, dove under the conference table and yelled for all of us to follow.  We all scrambled below the table and waited out the shaking...that is, all except one of the residents who grew up in Japan.  He just sat calmly laughing in his chair guessing the strength of the earthquake as he had also experienced a number of them before.  As if the shaking wasn't bad enough, the new critical care tower is built on rollers in case of an earthquake to help prevent structural damage.  We are on the top 8th floor, shaking...rolling...swaying for likely only a minute or so...but enough that I was annoyed to be in my nice dress clothes and heels and to still be kneeling on the floor under a table, just hoping my hair wasn't getting messed up.  It was all very reminiscent of elementary school in Utah...I also thought those earthquake drills were so silly as earthquakes rarely happen in Utah (at least in my memory)...who knew it would actually come in handy!  As soon as the shaking and rolling settled, we quickly dispersed to make sure that all of the patients were ok, ventilators and monitors still working, etc.  Once things calmed down, everyone turned their attention to speculating about the aftershocks that were sure to follow.  Within minutes, I was ready to book a flight back to Utah and flee the earthquake-riddled California.  However, a brave face was put on as I called mom and assured her that all was fine...especially since I had to convince her to still come on her scheduled visit to LA the following day.  

Todd was busy operating on some broken bone or another when the earthquake struck.  He was on the top 15th floor of the 100-year old national historic landmark LA-County Hospital. He was attempting to suture his incision closed as the case was coming to an end when all the shaking began.  In pure surgeon fashion, they team stood and joked about the shaking waiting for the annoying quake to stop so that their surgery could continue.  When asked why they didn't dive under the patient bed, he said that would be too much effort to then have to re-scrub in order to finish the case.  No real word mentioned as to what precautions were made to protect the patient...

Thankfully, we have not experienced any appreciable aftershocks.  Not even a picture on the wall appeared out of place once I was able to get home and assess.  Dad, Mom and Jocey are still agreeable to coming to visit...