YOUR AD HERE »

Flooding shutters Frisco surgery center, cancels several procedures

Jack Queen
jqueen@summitdaily.com

Heavy rains flooded the Peak One Surgery Center in Frisco on Tuesday evening, forcing the last-minute cancellation of 11 procedures scheduled for Wednesday and then the closure of the facility until at least the end of the week.

All medical equipment was quickly moved out when the leaks started and none of it was damaged, staff said. While some waterlogged ceiling tiles fell, damage to the interior was not extreme and crews were working throughout the night Tuesday to dry it out.

The building’s roof is currently being replaced, which allowed the rainwater to get in, surgery center administrator Michaela Halcomb said.



“Last night, there was just enough of a hard rain that the interim roofing, before it could be replaced with permanent, just did not hold, and that’s why we had water coming in,” she said.

A call to the contractor, Broken Arrow Roofing, dropped shortly after being answered, apparently due to poor cell reception. An immediate call back wasn’t picked up.



Halcomb said the roofer returned within 30 minutes of the first leaks to begin fixing the problem.

No surgeries were in progress when the leaks began at around 7 p.m., but employees were still there and quickly started arranging buckets and moving equipment.

“It started with a little drip and then more and more came down,” Halcomb said. “Soon we were walking in water and some ceiling tiles were coming down so we couldn’t keep up anymore.”

Patients with surgeries the next day were notified at around 7:30 p.m. that they would need to reschedule. Then on Wednesday morning, administrators decided to cancel the rest of the week as well.

Halcomb said repairs could easily continue into next week, prompting more cancellations. In that case, staff would contact the patients’ referring physicians, who would coordinate rescheduling or alternative surgical centers.

One patient whose Wednesday morning procedure was canceled said that while the last-minute change was frustrating, she appreciated quickly getting a spot at another facility in Edwards for the same morning. (She requested her name be withheld to protect her privacy.)

While located on the same campus, the Peak One Surgery Center is technically a separate entity from St. Anthony Summit Medical Center, although both facilities share mutual board members from Catholic Health Initiatives, which operates Centura hospitals.

“Our surgeons have been in close contact with St. Anthony to coordinate rescheduling,” Halcomb said, noting that all procedures carried out at Peak One can also be done at the Summit Medical Center if space is available.

Halcomb could not immediately provide a total number of cancellations for the week. The most common procedures performed in the center’s three operating rooms are orthopedic surgeries and injections, she said.

Tuesday evening was the second time the surgery center has flooded since January 2015, although the two incidents are unrelated.

A sprinkler line that burst during sub-zero weather caused the previous flood, which shut down the surgery center for weeks.


Support Local Journalism

Support Local Journalism

As a Summit Daily News reader, you make our work possible.

Summit Daily is embarking on a multiyear project to digitize its archives going back to 1989 and make them available to the public in partnership with the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection. The full project is expected to cost about $165,000. All donations made in 2023 will go directly toward this project.

Every contribution, no matter the size, will make a difference.