NOIDA: Nearly 400 people, among them 70 admitted patients, were in Metro Hospital and Heart Institute on Thursday morning when a fire started in the high-dependency unit on the second floor.It threw the five-storey building into chaos and triggered desperate measures like breaking glass panes on the facade to let out smoke and trapped people as crammed stairwells slowed down evacuation.Some people received minor injuries and some patients complained of breathing problems as the rush to get out of the building and a simultaneous power shutdown, according to witnesses, led to a stampede-like situation near the two stairwells but fortunately, everyone was evacuated to safety.The fire, which began around 12pm, was put out around an hour later. It took almost two hours to evacuate all the patients. The government later ordered a magisterial probe as patients alleged the sprinklers did not work and chief fire officer (CFO) Arun Kumar Singh said the hospital had not renewed its fire safety licence.Most of the 70 patients evacuated were taken to Metro Multispecialty Hospital in Sector 11 while three were admitted to Kailash Hospital in Sector 27.Kehar Singh, whose father was admitted, said the fire broke out from a switchboard in the HDU where a hospital staffer had plugged in a kettle. The HDU is where cardiac patients are kept for post-operative observation and care. Vijaypal Singh (73), who was admitted to the hospital on February 2, told TOI the switchboard was in the corner near his bed.“I saw the fire that began suddenly. My daughter and son-in-law rushed to help me get out. There were at least 10 patients in the unit who had to be evacuated by our relatives and hospital staff,” he said.There appeared to be an initial delay in gauging the seriousness of the fire as HDU patients were shifted to an ICU on the same floor. But as the flames spread to the HDU, cardiac OT, sterile processing department (CSSD) and the ICU, and thick smoke spread inside the hospital, there was panic in the entire building and people on the third, fourth and fifth floors had also begun rushing down, among them attendants and hospital staff desperate to get patients out to safety.But this ended up jamming the two main stairwells as the crowd merged there and, with both power supply and the generators being shut down, led to some people stumbling over one another and falling to the ground.Dayaram, who had undergone a heart surgery and was admitted in the HDU, told TOI he had failed to spot his son Kehar and was picked up by an unknown person and taken to safety.Kehar later said he could not find his father in the chaos and was looking around in panic before he spotted Dayaram being carried out.Hospital staff and patients’ relatives, in the meantime, broke glass panes on the building’s facade on the second, third, fourth and the fifth floors as the smoke began to choke people. A patient in hospital attire was seen in a video being evacuated through the record room next to HDU with some staffers standing on the awning to rescue him. Ladders were placed along the facade to help people climb down.District magistrate BN Singh, who ordered the inquiry, said, “The reasons for the fire will be investigated and we have decided that a magisterial inquiry will be held so that the incident can serve as a case study for other hospitals.” The inquiry will be conducted by the city magistrate.The hospital said all patients had been shifted to another wing in Sector 11. “The hospital has again started its routine work and shifted its patients to other wards,” it said in a statement.

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