NEW YORK — Monday is typically the busiest day at Elmhurst Hospital Center in New York’s City Queens borough, but it was all hands on deck in the hours following the fatal and horrific crash at LaGuardia Airport.

“There were people still coming in, going out, so the accident brought it to another level,” hospital employee Sofia Janz said in an interview with The Gazette.

Janz, who is training to work as an admitting clerk in the emergency department, said when she arrived Monday for her shift, she knew it was “very, very packed.” Many people had questions for which she didn’t have answers.

“Everybody was on their tips just trying to get everybody situated,” she said.

As an Air Canada Express flight operated by Jazz Aviation from Montreal landed on Runway 4 at LaGuardia late Sunday night, it collided with a fire truck. The two pilots on board were killed — and dozens of passengers were injured, along with the airplane’s cabin crew and the two firefighters in the truck.

The fiery collision sent injured crew and passengers to nearby hospitals, including Elmhurst — which is roughly a 10-minute drive from the airport. Hospital officials have not responded to requests for information, but two Elmhurst employees told The Gazette they believed as many as 20 of the injured were taken to their hospital.

“Some people said more,” Janz said of the number of patients originating from the crash.

The National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the incident, could not provide more details about the victims in a briefing Tuesday. Air Canada said six people who were on board the plane remained hospitalized, though it did not specify if they were being treated in the same hospital.

“Of the 76 passengers and crew, 39 were immediately sent to hospitals in the area with varying degrees of injuries, and 35 did not require immediate medical attention at the time and were able to depart for their final destination. Six people remain in hospital,” the airline said in a statement.

A maintenance employee, who is not being named for fear of reprisal, said he learned of the situation when he arrived at work at Elmhurst early Monday morning. He usually tunes into the news, but his shift was so early he headed straight to the job where he was “put on notice that there was a crash.”

“(My boss) informed us of what happened and that some patients would be in the hospital,” he said in an interview Tuesday.

Of the 20 or so patients he was told had arrived from the plane crash, the employee said they were treated on two separate floors dedicated to emergency and high-risk injuries.

“This being a hospital, I’m glad (the health-care staff) was dealing with survivors,” he said.

‘It’s been hectic’

Across Baxter Ave., Angie Gutierrez had arrived for her shift at the deli at 4:20 a.m. Monday when she saw the glow of police and ambulance lights outside the emergency department.

“I was scared,” she said. “My partner here, he said that maybe something happened like terrorists or something. We didn’t know.”

From behind the counter, Gutierrez watched as news vans poured in throughout the morning. She spoke to a few Elmhurst employees, but the deli didn’t get as many customers as usual.

“It was quiet because some people from the hospital were very busy,” Gutierrez said.

Inside the hospital, pharmacy intern Osaterin Otago said patients were talking Monday about the crash.

“There was a bit of concern in the air,” she noted, adding that she didn’t know that passengers from the flight were being treated at the hospital.

An Elmhurst health-care worker who was not authorized to publicly speak about the situation looked tired Tuesday as they described the overflow of patients at the hospital.

“It’s been hectic,” they said, adding however that emergencies like these are the kinds they train for.

Janz, for her part, lauded her colleagues’ dedication in a crisis.

“They were really doing their job. They were even doing extra,” she said.

Many questions for NTSB

The NTSB’s probe into the deadly collision is in its preliminary stages and Tuesday marked its first full day of investigation. Chair Jennifer Homendy and her colleagues explained the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder had been extracted from the plane. Officials were focused on the final three minutes of audio preceding the crash.

Canada’s Transportation Safety Board also sent three investigators to the site, with a spokesperson for the agency saying it was too soon to say how long their investigators will be there.

There are still many questions that remain as the NTSB investigation begins, including if occupants of the fire truck heard the desperate and repeated pleas from air traffic control to “stop” on in the seconds before the collision, and what elements may have led to the crash. Investigators’ interviews were expected to start Tuesday.

“We rarely, if ever, investigate a major accident where it is one failure. Our aviation system is incredibly safe because there are multiple, multiple layers of defence built in to prevent an accident,” Homendy said.

Hospital employees who spoke with The Gazette were concerned about aviation safety in wake of the crash, with some saying they were nervous to travel.

“How do you feel safe?” Janz asked.