Elderly refugees arrive with their medical conditions scrawled on masking tape on their foreheads
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Del Mar Fairgrounds:
In the Rancho Bernardo area of north San Diego County, more than 1,500 people, 2,200 horses and other pets took refuge Monday at the Del Mar fairground and racetrack. Among them were about 30 elderly patients from the nearby Via Rancho Bernardo skilled nursing home, who arrived by ambulance by midday; some had difficulty breathing and were immediately given oxygen.
The frail patients, many with disheveled hair and blank looks, could not walk and were squeezed onto thin mattresses or laid on the bare floor. Nearly all of them bore bits of white masking tape on their foreheads, marked with their name and sometimes their condition scrawled in black magic marker. One read: Depression. Another: Diabetes. Others lay on the ground with oxygen tanks by their sides.
Federico Neri, 70, who was left speechless by a stroke four months ago, wailed in distress as he laid sandwiched between two other elderly patients on a bare king mattress. He was hooked up to a feeding tube; masking tape on his forehead identified him as a diabetic.
His wife, Chita, 69, fretted that he had been unable to receive his required dialysis Monday because fires had closed the Rancho Bernardo treatment facility.
‘What would happen if he can’t have his dialysis soon?’ she asked. ‘He needs it three times a week.’
Another 200 people arrived from the Via Rancho skilled nursing center by bus. Volunteers helped them disembark from the bus and retrieve their walkers and wheelchairs. Paul Smith, supervisor with Americare Ambulance, said the fire was a less than a mile away when the nursing home was evacuated.
The Del Mar fairgrounds also hosted hundreds of horses, one zebra and chickens. Jimmy Cao, 14, who arrived from Carmel Valley Apartments five miles away with his mother, aunt and a brown hamster named Boo Boo, said they decided to come to the fairgrounds even though the evacuation in Carmel Valley was voluntary.
‘When we hear more news we’ll decide what to do. I don’t think the fire will reach us,’ he said.
The Del Mar exhibition hall was filled with refugees and more animals, including dogs and cats. First aid volunteers circled the cavernous hall, asking if anyone needed medical attention. ‘Breathing problems?’ ‘Chest pains?’ they asked.
Cathy Bellino, a 46-year-old financial analyst with Northrup Grummond, said she had fled her home in Rancho Bernardo early this morning. As she stood in a block-long line for a free hamburger and water, she cuddled a six-week-old black kitten she had just adopted Sunday. She was so stressed out by the fires, which were burning close to her home, that she had forgotten the kitten’s name.
According to Becky Bartling, the Del Mar facility’s deputy general manager, evacuees began arriving at 8 p.m. Sunday, many with horses, and peaked Monday afternoon. She said the facility had enough food and water for two to three days, but managers were scrambling to get more beds from call mattress rental companies.
She asked evacuees heading to the facility to bring blankets, pillows, medicines and food for pets.
It was unclear how long they would need to stay there.
-- Sonia Nazario