Passersby on State Route 16 last Wednesday, July 12, may have noticed several fire trucks and police cars as well as healthcare workers and patients in wheelchairs outside of Eatonton Health & Rehabilitation.
But there was no fire or cause for alarm, Eatonton Fire Chief Eugene Hubert said, crediting the quick response by the center’s staff and the fire department.
Healthcare workers at a nurses’ station just past the entrance lobby noticed “a little smoke” coming from a ceiling tile, Hubert said. The caretakers quickly took the residents who were congregated around the nurses’ station outside, while other staff members closed the doors to all the hallways.
“Each hall has its own set of fire doors at the end, so that was what they were supposed to do,” the veteran fire chief noted.
Fire personnel arrived and pulled back the ceiling tile “and it was very minor, there was never any flame at all. It was an electrical wire that had rubbed against a piece of metal and started smoking,” Hubert explained.
Firefighters pulled the smoldering wire away from the insulation and other materials in the ceiling, turned off the electricity in that hallway, and called an electrician.
“We stayed there and monitored it until the electrician had it completely repaired,” Hubert said. “It could have been much worse, but the staff’s quick thinking and reacting kept it from being bad and kept everyone safe.”
The one-story, 4,500-square-foot brick building was built in 1979 and underwent improvements in 1997, according to Putnam County records. Eatonton Health & Rehabilitation specializes in 24-hour skilled nursing, pharmacy, and hospice services; and physical, occupational, and speech-language therapy for short-term or long-term care, as well as wound care.