2 Providence hospital workers among missing

Norm McFarland, a manager at Providence Regional Medical Center Everett, said he remembers the last conversation he had with fellow employee Amanda Lennick on Friday afternoon.

“She had just bought a house and closed on it in the Oso area,” he said. “She was very happy to be moved in there.”

Lennick had recently moved out of an apartment and was looking forward to having a house of her own, he said.

The only problem was that the hot water heater wasn’t working. So, she had scheduled some men to come to her house on Saturday morning to replace it, he said.

“They were the ones there on Saturday when the slide occurred.” McFarland said.

Lennick, 31, a 2006 graduate of Washington State University’s nursing program, is among those missing after Saturday’s massive mudslide.

A second unidentified hospital employee also is missing, said D.W. Donovan, the hospital’s director of spiritual care. And Tom Durnell, the husband of a third employee, Debbie Durnell, also is missing. Debbie Durnell works as a certified nursing assistant at the hospital.

Donovan said that no further information was available Wednesday on either of these cases.

Lennick had worked at the hospital for about eight months, reviewing patient medical records. Her job was to make sure that everything they were being treated for was documented in the medical chart, he said.

The Tri-City Herald in Kennewick reported that in 2005, she and other nursing students traveled to Louisiana to assist Hurricane Katrina evacuees.

The hospital has been holding informal prayer services at the Colby campus, Donovan said.

“Our Providence community is very shaken by this,” he said. “These are dear friends they care so much about.”

Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.

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