A small rural hospital about an hour west of Fort Worth reached capacity in its ICU and COVID-19 units, with so many patients that employees were transferring some to higher-volume facilities to free up beds.

It served as an urgent warning to North Texas residents that, without a flattening of the curve, more facilities of its size — and the larger facilities receiving their patients — could become full.

Palo Pinto General Hospital in Mineral Wells hit the limit in its ICU and COVID units Tuesday afternoon, CEO Ross Korkmas said in a post on the hospital’s Facebook page. There are eight beds in the ICU, with six of them dedicated to the most severe COVID patients, according to Megan Hudson, the hospital’s public information officer. The COVID unit has 13 beds.

Korkmas expects there to be a spike after Thanksgiving and Black Friday, which could push healthcare systems across North Texas to their limits.

“I think we would be dangerously close to being overrun, and not just for our hospital but other hospitals in the metroplex and in neighboring rural towns,” Korkmas said.

The situation is “more fragile than people think,” he added. “We need everybody to do their part and start thinking of themselves as being on the frontlines in this fight.”