‘Once in a lifetime’: The story behind the Ottawa firefighters’ calendar

The Ottawa Fire Service (OFS) released a calendar featuring part of the crew with babies.

It’s the first time in many years since the service launched such a project. But unlike in years past, this calendar has a special story behind the photos.

Fire at the Ottawa General Hospital

It was Oct. 27, 2023, when the repair of a transformer at the Ottawa General Hospital led to a Code Orange — a fire —  just before 4:00 p.m.

Although a fire at a hospital is always treated with importance, this incident in particular will go down in history.

Despite the fire being small in nature and under control quickly, additional firefighters were called to the hospital urgently due to a partial evacuation, with some evacuees being delicate babies in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and women in labour.

The smoke from the flames was making its way through the floor and the backup power at the hospital was starting to dwindle.

“At hospitals that’s what you’re worrying about. You already have people that are sick, and then the smoke is spreading through the hospital and when you’re thinking of little, tiny NICU babies, it wouldn’t take much smoke for them to be in very big trouble,” Nick DeFazio, media relations officer with Ottawa fire, told CityNews Ottawa in an interview.

At Station 23, Brendan White said that his team was called to the hospital about mid-afternoon to bring spare equipment, flashlights, generators and water. Just as the incident looked like it was going to be resolved, White and the crew were needed again.

“We all got called back because they needed manpower for moving people, and they realized that they were going to be out of standby electricity,” he said.

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When crews responded, the usually bright, stark hospital was lit up by battery-powered lights and the smell of smoke wafted through the building. They were asked to climb the stairs to the eighth floor.

“It sunk in that first trip up the stairs when we got to labour and delivery because that’s exactly where my daughter was born,” White said. “So we were walking through all of the same waiting rooms and everything that I’d seen three or four years before. It was certainly a surreal moment.”

The task at hand was to carefully transport 17 NICU babies down the stairs, while attached to many machines, 600 metres across the quad to the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO). In addition, crews needed to move four women in labour and multiple others who had just given birth.

White credits the cooperation and how calm everyone stayed to the staff at the hospital who he said “were the real heroes” in this story.

The most vulnerable babies had a stretcher with a firefighter at each end, a nurse and in most cases, a respiratory therapist, White recalled. The process was long, requiring a transfer at the bottom of the eight flights of stairs and a wait time for the specialized equipment to come back from CHEO.

“We could only move one child at a time, essentially,” White said.

‘Pacing the floor not knowing what was going on’

One of those 17 babies that needed to be moved that night was Randi Saunders’ son, James.

At the time of the incident, Saunders was anxiously waiting by the phone in her Carleton Place home for updates on what was happening.

“On the night of the fire, we did our regular routine of calling to say goodnight and there was no answer, and there was always an answer,” she told CityNews.

“Odd,” Saunders thought, knowing she would call back.

“I think I called a couple of times and there was no answer, and then, it finally picked up,” she recalled. “But when the nurse answered, it was, ‘We are dealing with an emergency. Your baby is fine, and we will be in touch shortly’…CLICK.”

Saunders and her husband’s minds “were spinning.” Trying not to panic, not knowing what had happened hours earlier and the situation unfolding with their three-week-old son.

After waiting two hours, Saunders called the unit back and she was met with no answer. That’s when her husband looked at his phone and the couple realized there was a fire.

“We’re just pacing like all evening and they’re not calling us…We are scared but we don’t want to be driving them crazy with phone calls,” she said.

It wasn’t until 1:00 a.m., when the pair were lying awake in bed that they found out about the evacuation. That’s when, Saunders said she broke down.

“I was just so scared because he’s so little, and they’re evacuating,” she said.

At that moment Saunders was recalling the amount of care it took to move James on a daily basis, the machines and processes to make sure he stayed safe.

“Now they’re going to evacuate into a whole other building. And I’m just freaking out because we’re just scared all the time that we’re gonna lose him at any moment.”

Unknown to the family was that their little baby was carefully brought down the stairs by White.

“I just distinctly remember every baby had a barcode on them so that they knew who they were. And I just remember looking down and seeing “J” on this sticker,” he said.

In that instance, White took in the “massiveness” of the moment, wondering who the baby was before focusing his mind back on the task at hand.

A reunion months later

Of course, the night ended in success.

All those who needed to evacuate the building were taken to CHEO or other hospitals. In the weeks that followed DeFazio, the media relations officer, said the incident touched the firefighters so much that a special bond was formed between everyone involved.

The idea for the calendar came from the staff at the hospital.

DeFazio said he thought the idea was “unique” because of the story behind it. From there, one of the doctors coordinated information between the families of the NICU babies asking if they would be interested.

“The families were great. We did the whole photo shoot in one day. They came in one after another. And, I mean, the babies were amazing,” DeFazio said.

The project was a group effort, with local photographer, Ashley Metzger, and the publishing, by SURE Print & Graphics in Orleans, done free of charge. This would allow all the proceeds to go back to the NICU and the First Responders Foundation.

As for Saunders, one of the special moments was being able to meet White after the fact and thank him.

“(When he) walked in I gave him a big hug, and he gave me a nice card and a medal for James,” she said.

The decision to do the calendar was based on knowing one day the family would be able to tell the tale of how James was in the NICU.

“For him to grow up and look back. What an incredible story and memory for him,” Saunders said.

And who knows, it’s possible one of those 17 babies could become a firefighter one day.