Volume 7 • 2020 • Issue 3

Rebuilding After the Fire Dr. Viet Tran Dr. Phil Heinzelman On May 3, 2016, Drs. Phil Heinzelman and Viet Tran were in Edmonton for IV sedation training when they got a text from their staff at Timberlea Services Centre in Fort McMurray, Alberta. It was good news. That morning, the non-hospital surgical facility for dental services had been granted accreditation. Drs. Heinzelman and Tran had been building the new business for more than a year and it was finally ready to start receiving patients. “A nd then all of a sudden, around 3 pm, my phone started blowing up,” says Dr. Heinzelman. “Our staff called asking what they should do. And I said, ‘What do you mean?’” Staff members texted photographs of smoke from the Horse River Fire, which threatened the city. The dentists counseled their staff to follow the recommendations on the radio. “Then it was hard to get hold of anyone because everyone was stuck in traffic and trying to get out of town,” says Dr. Heinzelman. The news on the radio said the fire had jumped the river near the golf course close to Dr. Heinzelman’s house. He called his next-door neighbour, also a dentist, to find out if his home was still there. The dentists began to make calls to their insurance companies regarding their homes and businesses. Dr. Tran’s sister, a hygienist who worked with him, packed her family into a car and starting driving Dentists from Fort McMurray, Alberta, recovered their practices after a shutdown 18 | 2020 | Issue 3