A number of departments are in the basement of the hospital.

1. The Distribution Department for when I go on a run to get lice caps.
2. The Dietary Department for when I need to stock up on tea bags for the floor
3. The Cardiac Catheter lab for when I need to be reminded what a “warning radiation” symbol looks like
4. The Pharmacy for when I need to go grab some insulin for a nurse

So the basement is super creepy like you would expect a hospital basement to be. It has long hallways. It’s cold. It lacks any decorations save the diorama of the new hospital addition set to roll out in 2003. But regardless of just the general creepiness factor, I find the hospital basement terrifying an a very different level.

The walls of the basement are made of concrete, and we are in earthquake country.  In the picture below you can see earthquake cracks in the basement wall running about every foot down the wall. I can only show so much with this picture, but imagine these earthquake cracks for the entire length of the basement.  These cracks probably appeared during the last large earthquake in LA, and there is every reason to believe a much larger earthquake is on the way. Needless to say, I can do a pharmacy run faster than anyone else in that building.  I think about nothing else while I’m down there.

I know that technically, I could get crushed on the floor of the building where I work, but for some reason getting crushed in a basement seems so much worse than getting crushed on a middle floor.

How they convince dietitians and pharmacists to work down there is beyond me.  I would quit as soon as I saw the working conditions.