Home Nurse Describes Challenge of Evacuating Patient During Palisades Fire

For Kristin Thames, a home health registered nurse (RN), the recent spate of destructive wildfires brought her face-to-face with one of her longtime fears: how to evacuate non-ambulatory patients during a life-threatening emergency.

Unfortunately, she said the reality of finding herself trying to navigate this exact scenario was far more challenging and terrifying than she could have imagined. Thames, who resides in Calabasas, shared her firsthand experience with the San Fernando Valley Sun/el Sol following a Palisades Fire Community Meeting at Calvary Community Church in Westlake Village.

“I’m so pissed off about this because … when [officials are] giving their speeches, saying, ‘When we say leave, you have to leave,’ I think, ‘Easier said than done when you’re bedridden and you’re 80 or 70.’ Actually, it doesn’t matter how old you are if you rely on a caregiver,” said Thames, who has been a home health RN for over 20 years. “This is very important. I’ve called news stations to try to talk about this and what happened to me, but no one will listen.” 

The afternoon after the initial fires broke out in Pacific Palisades, Thames was with an elderly patient and his 78-year-old wife at their Malibu home on Pacific Coast Highway when they learned of the evacuation order for the community. Thames said she realized they would need help to safely move the bedridden man – who weighs more than 200 pounds – out to the car.

“I was literally outside in the middle of the street, trying to wave somebody down to help us. I must have had 20 ambulances pass me, and probably 10 [police vehicles],” recounted Thames. “One of the last cops said, ‘Get out of the road, ma’am.’ … Then he told me, ‘We can’t help you get your patient out of the bed because it’s a liability and if he gets hurt, it’s on our dime.’ So I asked him, ‘So what am I supposed to do?’ and he just said, ‘You have to call 9-1-1.’”

Fearful and frustrated, Thames and the wife struggled to move her patient, trying to carefully maneuver him from the bed into a wheelchair, but he fell to the floor. Then Thames placed a large bed sheet underneath him and together they painstakingly dragged him through the house.

“We had no choice because the fire was starting to come down the hill,” she explained. When they finally reached the garage, Thames went back outside, hopeful to find a good Samaritan who would be willing to help them place the patient inside the vehicle so they could finally evacuate.

“I waved down the last firemen I could see and, God love them, they were so wonderful. One of them even said, ‘I’m so sorry those other people didn’t help you,’” she recalled. Once all three of them were safely in her Toyota Prius, Thames drove to a hotel in Calabasas, where hotel staff helped her patient into a wheelchair, took him to their room and helped lift him onto the bed.

The couple later discovered that their beachfront house was completely destroyed in the fire.

“It was burned down to the ground. … They lost everything,” said Thames. Adding to their grief was the loss of their beloved cats. “We just couldn’t get the cats – and we tried so hard.”

Shortly after situating the couple at the hotel, Thames left to check on another patient in Malibu and encountered a nearly identical scenario. Luckily, she said, in that case, a second caregiver was there to help move the patient, and once again they used a bed sheet to transport him outside.

“What are we going to do with our seniors? At least six or seven older patients that I know of had to get either dragged out at the last minute or when the police came knocking on the door,” described Thames, noting that in some cases older or incapacitated residents may no longer have access to the internet, TV or cell phones to know what’s going on. And worse, caregivers or family members might not be able to get to them when traffic is blocked in evacuation zones.

Thames suggests that caregivers, community members and their friends or relatives create a “senior task force” for specific neighborhoods, to create lists that identify homes where ill or bedridden patients or seniors reside, to distribute during crises to neighbors and first responders.

“Maybe they can create an official registry,” she said. “But I think we have to do something.”

Thames said many people may assume that those who live in Malibu or other communities that have been devastated by the recent fires “are all rich or they’re celebrities” and don’t need help.

“But that’s not true. Most of the people I’ve worked for have lived in these communities nearly their whole lives,” she said, adding that some of her patients have had their homes for 50 years.

“It’s really frustrating. We have to do more to help our elderly,” continued Thames. “We’re all going to get old someday, God willing, because we’re living longer. We need to do better.”