Registered nurse Tracy Cipriano had just started charting patients Wednesday night at Lehigh Valley Hospital-Dickson City when the fire alarms blared.<\/p>\n
A whiff of smoke quickly followed.<\/p>\n
With a fire confirmed, Cipriano, who works on the hospital\u2019s medical-surgical unit, began assisting with the evacauation.\u00a0That\u2019s when she saw the flames shooting from the roof of the hospital\u2019s orthopedic center.<\/p>\n
She was scared, but knew she had a job to do: Get patients out quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had never been in a fire and to see the extent of those flames was really very, very scary,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Cipriano, a nurse for 23 years who resides in Dickson City, has worked at the hospital since it opened in 2022.<\/p>\n
She was a little more than 2\u00bd hours into her 12-hour shift on the hospital\u2019s third floor Wednesday night and had just started doing patient assessments when the alarm sounded around 9:40 p.m. When she heard it, Cipriano got up and began closing doors to patient rooms and letting them know there was a fire drill. As she was doing that, she and a colleague smelled smoke in the ward.<\/p>\n
A physician assistant in charge informed workers there was a fire on the roof and they needed to get patients out immediately. They gathered patients who could walk into one area and walked them down the stairs, then got patients who couldn\u2019t walk downstairs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe pretty much just all went to our patient rooms and began gathering patients,\u201d Cipriano recalled.<\/p>\n
She said her colleagues were assisted by co-workers from across the hospital, the hospital\u2019s security team and first responders, in getting patients out, using all types of equipment. Hospital employees also brought hospital socks and blankets for them.<\/p>\n
Cipriano said some patients were nervous as they descended the stairs, but no one screamed or panicked. She and her colleagues kept reassuring them they would get outside. Cipriano said she and her colleagues evacuated 20 patients from her third-floor medical surgical ward. A total of 77 patients were evacuated from the hospital Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
Cipriano assisted her colleagues in taking patients to a neighboring building at 316 Main St., as well as the Paciotti Insurance Agency building at 320 Main St. Hospital employees stayed with patients at the two buildings, giving them water, reassuring them and calling family members before they were transported to other hospitals or picked up by family members, she said. Cipriano got home around 2 a.m. Thursday.<\/p>\n
![\"Dickson](\"https:\/\/www.thetimes-tribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/STT-L-MotherDaughter-01.jpg?fit=620%2C9999px&ssl=1\")
Dickson City resident Candice Williams, left, poses for a photo with her mom, Tracy Cipriano. Cipriano, also of Dickson City, is a registered nurse at Lehigh Valley Hospital-Dickson City and evacuated patients during a fire at the hospital Wednesday night, Feb. 4, 2026. (Submitted)
\nShelter from the fire<\/p>\n
Neighboring business owner Brian Paciotti sprang into action to help hospital workers warm up and firefighters \u201cdefrost\u201d late Wednesday night into Thursday morning.<\/p>\n
Paciotti, the owner of Paciotti Insurance Agency, opened the business as a warming station.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was home and I got a call that there were people in the parking lot in chairs, and different things from the hospital,\u201d he said. \u201cThey asked if I could open up the building to get some people warm, so I came right down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paciotti noted many hospital employees took shelter from the bitter cold and used the restroom.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of them had coats and some didn\u2019t,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was very cold so they were hanging out in here, just getting warm. They were all really thankful \u2014 it was in the teens (Wednesday) night.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then, once the blaze was neutralized, several firefighters sought warmth.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of them came in to try to warm up and basically defrost because they were all covered in ice,\u201d Paciotti said. \u201cWe were here pretty late until the middle of the night, after 1 a.m.\u201d<\/p>\n
Borough officials recall fire scene<\/p>\n
Even before Dickson City Fire Chief Richard Chowanec left his house on Wednesday evening, he realized the extent of the fire at Lehigh Valley Hospital\u2013Dickson City.<\/p>\n
\u201cI pulled out of my driveway and looked toward the hospital and saw smoke in the air,\u201d he said. \u201cI started calling for additional resources before I even got to the scene.\u201d<\/p>\n
And in spite of the quick spread of the fire and the need to quickly evacuate patients, Chowanec and other borough officials say that a coordinated effort by police, fire, emergency services and hospital staff meant the difference between chaos and order, ensuring patient safety and limiting the spread of the fire.<\/p>\n
Dickson City Mayor Robert MacCallum, who is also a firefighter, was getting ready for bed when he heard the fire call. He left his house and got to the scene in time to see the first firetrucks arriving and flames coming from the roof.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike everyone else, I was taken aback and shocked that we could have a hospital on fire,\u201d he said. \u201cBut all the agencies responding worked together very well.\u201d<\/p>\n
As MacCallum watched the flames consuming part of the hospital, he couldn\u2019t help but remember when the building opened its doors in 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was there when the hospital was built. It was one of our proudest moments,\u201d he said. \u201cI can remember the ceremonial grand opening.\u201d<\/p>\n
MacCallum said he was also grateful that no one was hurt in the fire and ready to help the hospital reopen as soon as possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis definitely tugged at the heart,\u201d he said. \u201cYou think about how many patients they see, how many people they serve.\u201d<\/p>\n
Worried about work status<\/p>\n
Ashley Gonzalez, who worked at the hospital as a housekeeper for about a month, woke up at 4:30 Thursday morning, ready to go a work, and then realized she didn\u2019t have a job.<\/p>\n
When Gonzalez left the hospital about 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, she couldn\u2019t have envisioned the fire that so damaged the building. Gonzalez said her manager told employees they would soon be contacted about their work status.<\/p>\n
Gonzalez said she hopes she won\u2019t permanently be out of a job.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut, mostly, I\u2019m glad that everyone made it out of there and no one got hurt,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s the blessing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Everybody was amazing\u2019<\/p>\n
As Cipriano was evacuating patients, her family was calling her nonstop wondering if she was OK. Cipriano called her husband, Joe, and told him to call the rest of the family to inform them she was OK and evacuating patients.<\/p>\n
Cipriano\u2019s daughter Candice Williams, who also lives in Dickson City, heard about the fire just after 10 p.m. She began calling her mom but didn\u2019t get an answer. Williams later learned from family members her mom was working Wednesday night, and she drove to the hospital, arriving around 10:30 p.m., and found the orthopedic center ablaze.<\/p>\n
Williams, a mental health technician who is studying to become a registered nurse, said seeing so many emergency vehicles and personnel all over the hospital while not being able to get in touch with her mom made her physically sick and worried. She felt relief once they spoke.<\/p>\n
And by early Thursday, her fear turned to pride.<\/p>\n
Williams said she is proud of what her mom did to help the patients.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs her daughter, last night was one of the scariest moments of my life, but hearing how calm and focused my mom and the rest of the staff were while helping get patients out safely all while trying to keep them from panicking, even though they were afraid themselves, makes me incredibly proud of her and everyone who responded,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019re all heroes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Registered nurse Tracy Cipriano had just started charting patients Wednesday night at Lehigh Valley Hospital-Dickson City when the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[202,1099,201,182,139,28,178,180,179,181],"class_list":["post-106897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-dickson-city","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-top-stories-stt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}