Long term care residents at the Northern Lights Regional Health Centre are being welcomed back now that the hospital is back up and running. During the evacuation period the residents were moved to various Edmonton long term care units according to Northern Lights Regional Health Centre area manager for seniors health Denise Wilkinson, and she stated “It’s wonderful to have the residents back. Emotionally they wanted to come back, this is their home.” One of these residents is 83 year old Irvin Higdon, who watched through his fourth floor window as the flames spread and who was quickly evacuated. Higdon told reporters that “My boys are here, my grandchildren are here, and my great-grandchildren. It feels good to be back home.”

64 year old Frank Gibot is another one of the long term care residents at Northern Lights Regional Health Centre, calling it home for the past 14 years, and he had nothing but great things to say about the staff and the evacuation process. “I was a little bit scared. But the driver’s did a good job, the nurses, everyone did just a good job. I didn’t panic. It’s good to be back home. I missed being home after two months. I didn’t like it (being away), it was really hard.” All of the residents who had returned by the time the Countess of Wessex visited were invited to meet the Royal, and Gibot could not contain his excitement saying “I’m really excited to meet the Royals. I’ll be glad to meet them. I feel pretty special for the invite.”