A fire broke out early Thursday morning (July 9, 2026) inside a patient room at Athens’ Sismanoglou General Hospital, triggering an emergency alarm and prompting the full evacuation of the facility. The incident began around 5 a.m., sending staff and patients into urgent motion — and, according to eyewitnesses and relatives, into moments of panic. Some patients reported receiving no official instructions and evacuated on their own.
83-year-old patient dies during evacuation
During the evacuation, an 83-year-old female patient suffered a cardiac arrest and later died. Her son spoke to journalists outside the hospital, describing the harrowing sequence of events: ‘My mother suffered cardiac arrest while being moved out of her room.’ According to him, medical staff made extraordinary efforts to resuscitate her — administering CPR and other life-support measures — but were unsuccessful.
He explained that oxygen support had to be temporarily removed so she could be carried from her room. She was brought outside and seated just beyond the ward when the arrest occurred. ‘I can’t say definitively whether her death is linked to the fire — I’m not a doctor,’ he said. ‘That’s for the Fire Service to investigate. An autopsy will also be conducted, and only then will there be an official conclusion.’
Proximity and timing raise questions
The son noted that the fire erupted on the same floor where his mother was hospitalized — just four rooms away, in Room 8, while she was in Room 4 on the first floor. ‘Chronologically, the two events coincide,’ he emphasized. ‘The arrest happened shortly after the fire broke out, as the floor-wide evacuation was already underway.’
Health Minister disputes causal link
Earlier, Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis visited the hospital and stated that the woman’s cardiac arrest was unrelated to the fire. He described her as a critically ill elderly patient who had been among the first evacuated. ‘A lady who suffered cardiac arrest and passed away is not connected to the incident — she did not inhale smoke and was the very first patient transferred out,’ he said.