Spring Valley nursing home evacuated safely

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Larry Wright, business office manager at Brighton Place-East nursing home in Spring Valley east of San Diego, was listening to AM radio in the middle of the night, trying to determine if his 50-bed facility was safe. The charge nurse at the home was “getting more and more worried.”

With the news that Mount Miguel had caught on fire, Wright decided that he needed to evacuate his 50-bed nursing home.

“It was more precaution than anything,” Wright said. “We weren’t really concerned about the fire. We were concerned about the smoke. We have a ton of patients on oxygen.”

By about 5 a.m., all of the residents were in a sister facility, Brighton Place-San Diego. “There was no craziness. It actually went much better than you would expect.”

Wright said no one called the nursing home to discuss whether to evacuate. Even so, he said, “I really didn’t see the sense of taking any chances. I’d rather make the move even though it’s kind of a pain to get our residents to safety and have them not be in any danger than having to get them out very quick when the fire is acting kind of strange.”

By 2 p.m., after watching the smoke go away during the day, Wright said, “it looks like it’s coming our way now.”

-- Charles Ornstein