GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Potentially dangerous heat continues to work its way through West Michigan— ramping up efforts to stay cool, especially at hospitals and healthcare facilities.
FOX 17 went behind the scenes at Mary Free Bed to find out why the temperature matters so much to so many patients.
The rehabilitation hospital relies on a massive system to keep the building cool.
Its air conditioning is much different than the one you would find in your home, and many patients, especially those with spinal injuries, really rely on the system being fully functional.
“These are the cooling towers,” Mary Free Bed Senior Certified Healthcare Mechanic Rick Nequist explained. “The pumps that you saw inside are drawing water off the bottom of that tower.”
Nequist is not only a mechanic at the hospital, but also, a former patient.
“I’m a licensed contractor. Had an accident, fell off a two-story roof, got a bunch of pins and rods in my back, and I was actually seeing a therapist here when the job opening came open,” he explained.
Pumps bring the water from the cooling tower to the chillers. When the water goes into the chillers, it gets pumped to the hospital’s cooling coils with another set of pumps. Then, the cool air is sent to the many rooms inside Mary Free Bed.
“With a spinal cord injury…they are unable to sweat below their injury level, oftentimes, and they aren’t able to adjust their blood vessels to allow for heat distribution outside of the body,” Dr. Jon VandenBerg, a physical medicine and rehabilitation physician at Mary Free Bed, explained.
Nequist knows a lot of people are counting on him and his team.
“I would come up here, I would just push on the screen and our water set point, our chilled water set point is 40.6,” he added.
Mary Free Bed is also in the process of adding a new floor— it will bring in even more pumps and coolers to handle that extra space.
