A mother who was forced to evacuate a California hospital with her newborn baby as wildfires closed in has told of the harrowing pact she made with her rescuer – that if it came down to it he would take the baby and leave her behind.
Rachelle Sanders, 35, was recovering in Feather River Hospital in Paradise, California, after giving birth to her son Lincoln via C-section.
At 7.30am on November 8, panic-stricken nurses told Sanders the hospital was evacuating everybody due to the fast-approaching blaze, The San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Evacuee Rachelle Sanders cradles her newborn son Lincoln during a checkup just days after escaping the hospital during the Camp Fire
They didn’t know it at the time but this fire, known as the Camp Fire, was to become the deadliest in California’s history and would raze the entire town of Paradise to the ground.
To complete a mass evacuation with very little time, hospital staff used their own cars to transport patients to safety.
Sanders, who was unable to walk after her C-section surgery, was confined to a wheelchair and loaded into the white sedan of a staff member named David. Newborn Lincoln was placed in her lap.
Emergency personnel evacuate patients as the Feather River Hospital burns while the Camp Fire rages through Paradise, California, on Thursday, November 8, 2018
Patients are quickly evacuated from the Feather River Hospital during the Camp fire in Paradise, which has killed 79 people so far
To complete a mass evacuation with very little time, hospital staff used their own cars to transport patients to safety. Rachelle went with a stranger named David, who worked at the hospital but never found out his last name
Sanders described to CNN the terrifying drive as they attempted to outrun the gigantic flames, with propane tanks exploding and a ‘windstorm of fire’ surrounding the gridlocked road. Her incision meant she could not even wear a seatbelt.
The Camp Fire, which has so far claimed 79 lives and left 700 people missing, was hot enough to melt car parts, including aluminum wheels, rubber surrounding the windows and the plastic taillights on David’s sedan.
‘I thought I wasn’t going to make it, for sure,’ Sanders told CNN. ‘I wasn’t sure any of us were going to make it. It was very, very terrifying.’
Scared of burning alive in the cars, people abandoned them on the road to try and continue on foot. But Sanders, who was unable to run and whose intravenous line was still in, was focused on Lincoln’s survival.
Medical workers move equipment from a makeshift emergency room while the Feather River Hospital burns as the Camp Fire rages through Paradise
Residences burned to the ground by the Camp Fire wildfire line in a neighborhood in Paradise, California
‘If it comes down to it, if you have to run, take the baby,’ she told David, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. ‘Leave me behind.’
The drive took them past Sanders home, which had been burnt to the ground. Fortunately her husband Chris and their two older children had already fled to safety.
Their journey was rerouted several times but eventually David, whose last name Sanders never learned, was told it was safe to return to the hospital in Paradise, which had escaped the flames.
Sanders was later transferred to Enloe Medical Center in Chico, California.
President Donald Trump (second from left) visits areas destroyed in the Camp Fire in Paradise on November 17, 2018. Trump twice referred to the town as ‘Pleasance’, sparking fury and accusations of flippancy
She told CNN: ‘Never have I had a Thanksgiving come where I have had so little and felt more thankful and blessed.’
The Camp Fire has burned through about 150,000 acres in northern California and, as of last night, is 70 per cent contained.
Authorities have said they don’t expect the fire to be fully contained until November 30.