VIDEO: A fire at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Davenport killed 40 patients and one nurse, all of which were women.
It was the deadliest disaster in Quad Cities history and the third largest hospital fire in United States history.
Up until last month, nobody had ever written about it.
That has changed with Bettendorf author Dr. Bret Grimes, who tells the story about what happened at the site where Genesis West Hospital stands today.
In the cold and early morning hours of Jan. 7, 1950, a patient at St. Elizabeth Hospital is said to have hallucinated and believed she needed to get out of her locked room.
“She started a newspaper on fire and then took that to the curtain and started the curtain on fire,” Grimes said. “That created a cascade of events that led to the death of 41 people and that building burning to the ground.”