Patients Moved After Leak Floods Hospital

A water pipe believed to have been broken by construction workers sent water cascading down several floors of Olive View Medical Center in Sylmar, forcing hospital workers to move about two dozen patients, officials said.

A one-inch pipe in a sixth-floor restroom broke about 9:16 p.m. Tuesday, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Jim Wells said. Water gushing from the pipe caused flooding down to the third floor, but the fifth and sixth floors were the hardest hit with several inches of water reported in the hallways.

Assistant Hospital Administrator Mario Sewell said 10 patients in the adolescent psychiatric ward were moved from their sixth-floor rooms soon after the pipe burst; 16 patients in rooms directly below the pipe were also moved. All the patients were moved back to their rooms Wednesday, Sewell said.