NORTH HILLS : Woman Earns Medal for Her Show of Mettle

Dorothy Nolt had just finished her paperwork--halfway through her overnight shift on the switchboard--when she took off her glasses and walked in her stocking feet into the next room for a cup of coffee.

“That’s when everything went flying, and everything went black,” said Nolt, one of the minority of Los Angeles residents already awake when the Northridge earthquake struck at 4:31 a.m. Jan. 17.

Last week, her efforts during the earthquake earned Nolt, 60, an American Legion, Department of California, Medal of Honor. A switchboard operator at the Sepulveda Veterans Administration Hospital for 13 years, Nolt stayed on duty that morning despite broken glass, falling water and equipment crashing around her, providing information to other VA hospitals and clearing the way for the evacuation of the patients.

When the quake hit, Nolt was left in complete darkness. Her glasses and her shoes--she has a habit of taking them off during her overnight shift--were somewhere in as pile of overturned books and equipment.

None of the phone lines, pay phones or emergency lights were working. Along with the medical center and its 331 patients, Nolt was temporarily cut off from the outside world.

Like any other grandmother, one of her first thoughts was of her family, and Nolt wondered how her son in Sherman Oaks, daughter in Sylmar and three grandchildren were.

But she said, “I was brought up to take care of my responsibilities.” So, she felt her way back into the room with the switchboard, lit only by a little moonlight. A doctor gave her a flashlight and she was able to find her shoes and glasses, which luckily had not been broken.

“There was no place that was not covered with either books, paper or broken glass,” she said.

Nolt found she could not call out, but that the hospital could receive incoming calls. Within about 10 minutes, the first calls came from other VA hospitals, including those in West Los Angeles and Long Beach. She had those hospitals stay on hold so they could make calls for her.

“All I could tell them at the time was that the building was still standing,” Nolt said.

“We had calls from all over the United States from different VA hospitals checking on how we were,” Nolt said. “I was amazed at how many could get through.”

Eventually, hospital officials were able to get two of the four switchboards working so they could make long distance calls. But local calls were still impossible.

To help evacuate patients, hospital officials arranged for buses using the hospital police’s portable radios, which had been brought in to replace an emergency radio destroyed in the quake.

Running on adrenaline, Nolt stayed on duty until noon that day. She was back that night, working a switchboard that had been set up outside. The next night, the switchboard was set up in a van where she has worked since the quake.

Nolt, who lives in Sylmar, said she was flabbergasted at winning the statewide award, which was presented to her at a ceremony in Bakersfield.

“It was, how would you put it, awesome,” Nolt said.