A large fire Wednesday night at Lehigh Valley Hospital — Dickson City forced the evacuation of patients and employees and prompted a massive response from about 100 firefighters and first responders from throughout the region.
Lackawanna County EMA Director Tom Taylor said 77 patients were evacauated and were being relocated to other hospitals throughtout the region.
He said there was heavy fire to the left side, ther orthopedic side, of the building. That section seems to be a total loss and the entire hospital sustained smoke damage
At one point, flames shot from the hospital’s roof, bringing roughly 100 first responders and dozens of emergency vehicles to the scene to assist.
Patients in wheelchairs and stretchers or walking with help from staff were moved to an adjacent building at 316 Main Ave. in Dickson City. Patients were all wrapped in hospital blankets as temperatures dipped in the low teens to single digits.
At Citywide Animal Clinic on the other side of Main Avenue, 10 ambulances filled the parking lot, and additional emergency vehicles parked along Main Avenue.
Fire crews sprayed water to the top floors of the hospital as patients were loaded onto ambulances.
An ambulance was delayed as first responders tried to clear a lane that was choked with emergency vehicles, utility vehicles and buses. A single lane was opened headed toward the Interstate 81 interchange.
There were four County of Lackawanna Transit System buses parked just short of the hospital, and an official could be overheard saying: “If you are family, go to the buses.”
Whether any Dickson City patients required transfer to Geisinger Community Medical Center or another facility was not immediately clear.
A hospital staff member that answered the phone in the emergency department of Regional Hospital of Scranton about 10:45 p.m. said they didn’t know if they’d have to take transferred patients from Dickson City.
“We are open to them, but we don’t know,” the staff member said. “We are ready for patients to come if they need to but we haven’t heard of anyone in particular coming yet.”
At least three utility vehicles were at the scene including at least one worker in a bucket truck in front of the hospital.
Fire, police and EMS crews, including Moscow, Justus, Chinchilla and Greater Pittston, rushed to the scene. Off-shift employees also arrived to assist, according to scanner reports.
Gov. Josh Shapiro said on social media that state police, the state’s emergency management agency and the state Department of Health were helping to evacuate patients and secure the area.
“Thank you to every first responder running toward danger to help their fellow Pennsylvanians. Lori and I are praying for the staff, patients, their families, and the entire community tonight,” he wrote.
U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan, R-8, Dallas Twp., said on social media that his “thoughts are with the patients, staff, first responders, and families affected by the fire at Lehigh Valley Hospital–Dickson City.”
“I am traveling back from Washington, and my team and I will continue to closely monitor the situation and support local officials as they respond,” he said.
The for-profit, physician-owned Coordinated Health broke ground at the Dickson City site in January 2019, after acquiring Scranton Orthopaedic Specialists in 2017. But work on what would have been called Coordinated Health Scranton Hospital soon stalled, and didn’t resume in earnest until after nonprofit Lehigh Valley Health Network acquired Coordinated in December 2019.
Officials gathered at the site to announce plans for an expanded hospital in October 2020, after construction had resumed.
The acquisition and the hospital project marked Lehigh Valley Health Network’s first major foray into Lackawanna County and the Scranton area. The new Dickson City hospital also filled a void in the Midvalley region left when Mid Valley Hospital, a Commonwealth Health facility in Blakely, eliminated inpatient services and its emergency room in 2014.
The new hospital ultimately opened in May 2022 with a 19-bay emergency room. It celebrated in June 2023 the addition of seven ICU beds and nine new medical-surgical beds on a previously unfinished fourth floor of the then roughly year-old facility.
Lehigh Valley Health Network and Philadelphia-based Jefferson Health completed a merger in 2024, closing the transaction that summer to become a single health system.
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