Officials at Edmonton’s Misericordia Hospital are trying to find new spaces for a number of patients, and a number of elective surgeries have been cancelled, after a pipe burst on the third floor, flooding the units, and operating rooms, below.

Covenant Health officials told CTV News Friday that the flood started at about 11:30 p.m. Thursday, on the third floor in the west wing of the hospital.

It’s believed a toilet valve, attached to a high pressure water line burst while repairs were being made to the toilet, and water poured down to the second and first floors.

Patient Wayne Slobodian was on the sixth floor, but he heard the commotion from the flooding.

“I was woken up with a big bang, crash and they were rolling another patient in our room, and he told me there was a flood on the third floor,” Slobodian said.

“This is the most extensive flooding that we’ve had at the Misericordia, in recent memory, that I can recall anyway,” Jennifer Fougere, VP of Support Services at the Misericordia said.

“[Because of all the] racket, I couldn’t sleep,” Slobodian said. “I got up and came down, and the water’s coming from the third in through the second and into the lobby here.”

Patients in the mental health and the medicine units were affected, and work began to move the more than 50 patients to other parts of the hospital.

“We immediately evacuated the patients off of 3 West, into other beds within our facility,” Jan Schimpf, VP of Acute Care said.

Officials also said they’re in the process of finding spaces for them in other hospitals.

In addition, 46 elective surgeries slated for Friday were cancelled – it wasn’t clear if the cancellations would continue past Friday.

“We’ve actually had some damage to our main floor that we’re assessing, and because of the fact we need to understand the extent, we have cancelled all of our elective surgeries for today,” Schimpf said.

It’s not clear when the cancelled operations will be rescheduled.

A damage assessment is still being completed, the water not only affected units below, but the gift and flower shop – even the basement – was damaged in the flood.

The emergency room at the Misericordia Hospital is still open.

With files from Susan Amerongen