Fire Drill

Yesterday was an exciting day at the nursing home. I was sitting in my office when I heard the fire alarms sound. Usually I'm told ahead of time when there is going to be a drill but I wasn't aware of any drill this time but yet I didn't think too much of it. I go down one of the halls and start checking rooms and closing the doors behind me. After the other staff and I had gone down the whole hall and hadn't found the flashlight (that's the fire you're supposed to find during a drill), we returned back to the dayroom to see if anyone on the other hall had found anything. As soon as we crossed the threshold, we smelled smoke. Then we realized that there was smoke coming from the ceiling! The decision was quickly made to evacuate all the residents. Knowing that there was a real fire was very scary and we immediately began running. The first room I went to, the resident refused to leave her room. She said staff had told her several times before that there was a fire and evacuation was needed but every time it was just a drill and she was not going to do it this time. No matter what I said, she planted her feet and said she wasn't going. Just as I was about to leave and come back to her later, I pressed on to say that the building was on fire, there was smoke, it smells, and she has GOT to get out of the building! She finally agreed. We got all the residents into the parking lot and luckily it had stopped raining by that point. The fire department arrived and after about 45 minutes, they told us that we could return into the building and that some "dust bunnies" in the duct work got too hot. We returned the residents to the building and went on with our day. At least we got our yearly evacuation drill completed! Most important, I'm just glad that the building and the residents were okay.