14 hours ago
Community ‘bittersweet' over demolition of Atlanta Medical Center
Atlanta Medical Center will soon be demolished after more than 100 years as a hospital.
'It's a bittersweet moment,' Tommie Hinton, a nearby resident, said.
Hinton knows how valuable the hospital was to the community. It was the place where his son was born and where his life was saved.
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'Pretty much the reason that I'm alive is because there's walking distance to the hospital,' Hinton told Channel 2's Michael Doudna.
Back in 2017, doctors saved Hinton's life after a bullet hit his femoral artery. He says doctors not only saved his life but also his leg, allowing him to be part of the hospital's demolition crew.
"With time, everything changes, everything evolves, nothing's going to stay the same," Hinton said.
Hinton was one of 10 Old 4th Ward residents trained by Heavy Equipment Training School.
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'The community is growing, so we must grow,' Marcus Haliburton Sr. said.
Haliburton knows the community well and was born at the hospital.
He says a donation from WellStar paid for the training of the 10 residents who now qualify to work on-site and at future locations.
'They got a skill that they can take on the road. They got certifications that they could use forever,' Lawanda Haliburton, Marcus' sister and company CEO, said.
The hospital's demolition will not be a simple one, as there are some parts that have amounts of asbestos and lead. Developers of the site say it will take months to take down the hospital and had to call in special equipment.
That includes a super-long excavator that can reach 14 stories into the sky, one of the largest machines of its kind in the country.
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