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Between late August and early November of this year, three strong Gulf Coast and Atlantic hurricanes and several intense, fast-moving northern California forest fires claimed more than 285 lives and caused countless additional injuries and illnesses. During the same period, three unnatural disasters—in Las Vegas, New York City (NYC), and now Sutherland Springs, Texas—were responsible for a total of 84 deaths and 558 injuries. Emergency physicians (EPs) and our colleagues helped deal with the aftermath of all of these incidents, saving lives and ameliorating survivors’ pain and suffering. But ironically, preventing future deaths and injuries from natural disasters may be easier than preventing loss of life from depraved human behavior.
An October 9, 2017 Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article by Jeanne Whalen entitled “Training Ground for Military Trauma Experts: U.S. Gun Violence,” describes how military surgeons helped treat victims of the Las Vegas shooting, one of several arrangements across the United States where steady gun violence provides a training ground that experts can then use on the battlefield. The article includes a photograph of Tom Scalea, MD, Chief of the R. Adams Cowley (Maryland) Shock Trauma Center and EM board member, operating with the assistance of an Air Force surgeon “embedded” at the hospital.
Before September 11, 2001, US hospitals looked to military surgeons experienced in treating combat injuries to direct and staff their trauma centers. Now, the military looks to US hospitals to provide their surgeons with experience treating victims of gun violence, explosives, and high-speed vehicular injuries prior to sending them into war zones! In the week before this issue of EM went to press, a terrorist driving a rental truck down an NYC bicycle path killed 8 people and injured 11 near the site of the 1993 and 2001 World Trade Center attacks. Five days later, 26 church worshipers near Austin, Texas lost their lives and 20 more were seriously injured when a lone gunman shot them with an assault rifle.
The gun violence statistics in this country are staggering. According to the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive (GVA; http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/), from January 1 through November 8, 2017 there have been 52,719 incidents resulting in 13,245 deaths and 27,111
The pervasiveness of the gun culture in this country offers little hope of eliminating such incidents in the future, which makes it especially important for all EPs to be skilled in state-of-the-art trauma management. (See parts I and II of “The changing landscape of trauma care” in the July and August 2017 issues of EM [www.mdedge.com/emed-journal]). As Baltimore trauma surgeon Tom Scalea notes in the WSJ article cited earlier, “Mass shooting? That’s every weekend.…it makes me despondent….I don’t have the ability to make that go away. I have the ability to keep as many alive as I can, and we’re pretty good at it.”
As for preventing deaths from natural disasters, more accurate weather forecasting and newer technology offer more hope. Among the 134 storm-related deaths from Hurricane Irma in September, 14 were heat-related after the storm disabled a transformer supplying power to the air conditioning system of a Hollywood, Florida nursing home. A new state law will now require all nursing homes to have adequate backup generators. But for the increasing numbers of older persons with comorbidities, taking multiple medications, and living in hot climates, air conditioning must be considered life support equipment that requires immediate repair or replacement when it fails—or transfer of the residents to a cool facility.
If only we could someday also prevent terrorism and other acts of senseless violence.
*The GVA defines a mass shooting as a single incident resulting in 4 or more people (not including the shooter) shot and/or killed at the same general time and location.
Between late August and early November of this year, three strong Gulf Coast and Atlantic hurricanes and several intense, fast-moving northern California forest fires claimed more than 285 lives and caused countless additional injuries and illnesses. During the same period, three unnatural disasters—in Las Vegas, New York City (NYC), and now Sutherland Springs, Texas—were responsible for a total of 84 deaths and 558 injuries. Emergency physicians (EPs) and our colleagues helped deal with the aftermath of all of these incidents, saving lives and ameliorating survivors’ pain and suffering. But ironically, preventing future deaths and injuries from natural disasters may be easier than preventing loss of life from depraved human behavior.
An October 9, 2017 Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article by Jeanne Whalen entitled “Training Ground for Military Trauma Experts: U.S. Gun Violence,” describes how military surgeons helped treat victims of the Las Vegas shooting, one of several arrangements across the United States where steady gun violence provides a training ground that experts can then use on the battlefield. The article includes a photograph of Tom Scalea, MD, Chief of the R. Adams Cowley (Maryland) Shock Trauma Center and EM board member, operating with the assistance of an Air Force surgeon “embedded” at the hospital.
Before September 11, 2001, US hospitals looked to military surgeons experienced in treating combat injuries to direct and staff their trauma centers. Now, the military looks to US hospitals to provide their surgeons with experience treating victims of gun violence, explosives, and high-speed vehicular injuries prior to sending them into war zones! In the week before this issue of EM went to press, a terrorist driving a rental truck down an NYC bicycle path killed 8 people and injured 11 near the site of the 1993 and 2001 World Trade Center attacks. Five days later, 26 church worshipers near Austin, Texas lost their lives and 20 more were seriously injured when a lone gunman shot them with an assault rifle.
The gun violence statistics in this country are staggering. According to the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive (GVA; http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/), from January 1 through November 8, 2017 there have been 52,719 incidents resulting in 13,245 deaths and 27,111
The pervasiveness of the gun culture in this country offers little hope of eliminating such incidents in the future, which makes it especially important for all EPs to be skilled in state-of-the-art trauma management. (See parts I and II of “The changing landscape of trauma care” in the July and August 2017 issues of EM [www.mdedge.com/emed-journal]). As Baltimore trauma surgeon Tom Scalea notes in the WSJ article cited earlier, “Mass shooting? That’s every weekend.…it makes me despondent….I don’t have the ability to make that go away. I have the ability to keep as many alive as I can, and we’re pretty good at it.”
As for preventing deaths from natural disasters, more accurate weather forecasting and newer technology offer more hope. Among the 134 storm-related deaths from Hurricane Irma in September, 14 were heat-related after the storm disabled a transformer supplying power to the air conditioning system of a Hollywood, Florida nursing home. A new state law will now require all nursing homes to have adequate backup generators. But for the increasing numbers of older persons with comorbidities, taking multiple medications, and living in hot climates, air conditioning must be considered life support equipment that requires immediate repair or replacement when it fails—or transfer of the residents to a cool facility.
If only we could someday also prevent terrorism and other acts of senseless violence.
*The GVA defines a mass shooting as a single incident resulting in 4 or more people (not including the shooter) shot and/or killed at the same general time and location.
Between late August and early November of this year, three strong Gulf Coast and Atlantic hurricanes and several intense, fast-moving northern California forest fires claimed more than 285 lives and caused countless additional injuries and illnesses. During the same period, three unnatural disasters—in Las Vegas, New York City (NYC), and now Sutherland Springs, Texas—were responsible for a total of 84 deaths and 558 injuries. Emergency physicians (EPs) and our colleagues helped deal with the aftermath of all of these incidents, saving lives and ameliorating survivors’ pain and suffering. But ironically, preventing future deaths and injuries from natural disasters may be easier than preventing loss of life from depraved human behavior.
An October 9, 2017 Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article by Jeanne Whalen entitled “Training Ground for Military Trauma Experts: U.S. Gun Violence,” describes how military surgeons helped treat victims of the Las Vegas shooting, one of several arrangements across the United States where steady gun violence provides a training ground that experts can then use on the battlefield. The article includes a photograph of Tom Scalea, MD, Chief of the R. Adams Cowley (Maryland) Shock Trauma Center and EM board member, operating with the assistance of an Air Force surgeon “embedded” at the hospital.
Before September 11, 2001, US hospitals looked to military surgeons experienced in treating combat injuries to direct and staff their trauma centers. Now, the military looks to US hospitals to provide their surgeons with experience treating victims of gun violence, explosives, and high-speed vehicular injuries prior to sending them into war zones! In the week before this issue of EM went to press, a terrorist driving a rental truck down an NYC bicycle path killed 8 people and injured 11 near the site of the 1993 and 2001 World Trade Center attacks. Five days later, 26 church worshipers near Austin, Texas lost their lives and 20 more were seriously injured when a lone gunman shot them with an assault rifle.
The gun violence statistics in this country are staggering. According to the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive (GVA; http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/), from January 1 through November 8, 2017 there have been 52,719 incidents resulting in 13,245 deaths and 27,111
The pervasiveness of the gun culture in this country offers little hope of eliminating such incidents in the future, which makes it especially important for all EPs to be skilled in state-of-the-art trauma management. (See parts I and II of “The changing landscape of trauma care” in the July and August 2017 issues of EM [www.mdedge.com/emed-journal]). As Baltimore trauma surgeon Tom Scalea notes in the WSJ article cited earlier, “Mass shooting? That’s every weekend.…it makes me despondent….I don’t have the ability to make that go away. I have the ability to keep as many alive as I can, and we’re pretty good at it.”
As for preventing deaths from natural disasters, more accurate weather forecasting and newer technology offer more hope. Among the 134 storm-related deaths from Hurricane Irma in September, 14 were heat-related after the storm disabled a transformer supplying power to the air conditioning system of a Hollywood, Florida nursing home. A new state law will now require all nursing homes to have adequate backup generators. But for the increasing numbers of older persons with comorbidities, taking multiple medications, and living in hot climates, air conditioning must be considered life support equipment that requires immediate repair or replacement when it fails—or transfer of the residents to a cool facility.
If only we could someday also prevent terrorism and other acts of senseless violence.
*The GVA defines a mass shooting as a single incident resulting in 4 or more people (not including the shooter) shot and/or killed at the same general time and location.
