ROCHESTER, N.Y. — After the mass shooting in downtown Rochester over the weekend, a trauma doctor tells us how Strong Memorial Hospital responded and what goes into saving lives when a mass casualty event unfolds.
Learning and preparing
Dr. Mark Gestring, chief of trauma and emergency general surgery at Strong Memorial Hospital, says they always work to learn something from these events to stay ready for the next one. He says hospitals across the country are learning these events are becoming more common.
Gestring says it’s not a matter of if, but when.
“On a quiet afternoon when you’re sitting and planning what new type of disaster could occur, maybe you feel like maybe a doomsday predictor, but if you’re not thinking about the kinds of situations you get into, then you’re not going to be prepared for what actually happens,” Gestring said.
Gestring says being prepared means ensuring on-call doctors are available immediately and knowing who needs to be called in. Once patients arrive, they immediately figure out a plan for care.
“When patients arrive here sorting out who is seriously injured and maybe who can wait, of the seriously injured, who needs emergent surgery because we have operating rooms here that are open 24/7. So who needs emergency surgery? Those people would probably go first,” Gestring said.
Having a system
Gestring also spoke about the importance of having a system to keep things organized once patients arrive.
“You would think the clerical part, maybe it’s not so important, but making sure that you’re patient number one and you’re patient number two and you’re patient number three and making sure that the blood that’s destined for you and the X-rays you’re getting, all those things are kept together becomes confusing when you have multiple patients at once or with similar injuries,” Gestring said.
Because this happened close to the hospital, Gestring says there wasn’t much time to prepare.
“We don’t have quite as much preparation time. But the systems that we have in place allow us to ramp up very quickly and to make the space we need very quickly for those types of situations,” Gestring said.
What doctors experience
As for what it’s like for doctors in these situations, Gestring says professionalism takes over.
“If you’re a professional at what you do, it shouldn’t affect you at the beginning. It might affect you afterwards, but at the beginning, if you’re a firefighter, you’re going to put out a church fire, you’re going to put out a house fire, right? You don’t think about it,” Gestring said.
Gestring is proud Strong can help in those situations, but sometimes life-saving care happens at the scene. The other closest level 1 trauma centers besides Strong are in Buffalo and Syracuse.
Gestring says the hospital does support the city’s efforts to prevent things like this.
How law enforcement helped save lives
Doctors at Strong Hospital say law enforcement played a significant role in providing care during Sunday morning’s mass shooting.
Dr. Gestring highlighted officers use of tourniquets. Rochester Police says it applied potentially life-saving tourniquets to two of the victims Sunday morning.
Gestring says RPD and other nearby departments have embraced what he calls the Stop the Bleed concept. He says if you look at an officer’s belt now, most of them have a tourniquet. He says that wasn’t the case a couple years ago.
Gestring says police are usually the first ones on scene. The hospital helps train officers so they can provide quick medical care in those cases. Dr. Gestring says police in Rochester have been able to save lives using tourniquets.
“The police officer who’s there, if they can, if they see real active bleeding, they can apply these tourniquets very quickly,” Gestring said. “It’s a reasonably simple technology, but it makes a huge difference. And even if the patient, you know, has a 10 or 15 minute transport time to the hospital, that’s 10 or 15 minutes that they’re not pumping blood out of, out of the from their injury. So yeah those things are life saving.”
Dr. Gestring also added that applying a tourniquet is a skill anyone can learn and that they teach the skill to kids as young as eight or nine years old. Back in March, an RPD officer applied their own tourniquet after being shot in the leg.
RELATED:
Trauma Docs: Increased usage of tourniquets is helping to save lives (March 23)Trauma chief at Strong Memorial explains how doctors respond to mass casualty events WHEC.com.
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