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by CollegiateTimes.com
Monday, April 16th 2007 4:24PM
Hospitals handle a surge of victims
Charles R. Barrineau, CT Reporter
UPDATE: According to Carilion
spokesperson Eric Earnhart, one of the three persons transported to
Roanoke was pronounced dead. Earnhart said that he believed that the
deceased was among the 33 pronounced dead.
Roanoke - Three victims of today's
shooting incident on the Virginia Tech campus are currently being
treated at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital in South Roanoke.
"We've received three patients here,
all critically injured from the incident," said Carilion Spokesperson
Eric Earnhart. "They were critically injured and that's all the
information I have at this time."
Roanoke Memorial is unique in its
status as a top-level trauma facility.
"It's one of the level-one trauma
centers in the state, yes, and this would be the trauma center for this
region," Earnhart said. "There are certain criteria for level-one trauma
centers, including having certain types of doctors on-call, certain
types of surgeons on call 24/7. Sometimes certain types of neurological
and head trauma are more easily at a trauma center because you have
those types of doctors on-call."
Although Roanoke Memorial is a
level-one trauma center, that does not necessarily mean that all
patients here may require such services.
"I don't know what types of injuries
we received," Earnhart said. "Keep in mind, the other situation you're
dealing with here is you have a large number of patients, obviously,
more than one hospital could handle. And, we have, sort-of, a regional
system where when you've got a mass-casualty situation the patients are
divided up so that they can be treated appropriately in other places. I
don't know if those patients came here because this was the only place
we could treat them, or because this is where we had room."
One thing affecting the transport of
patients from Virginia Tech to area medical centers is the high winds in
Blacksburg and the surrounding area.
"Obviously, you get people here as
quickly and as safely as you can," Earnhart said. "You've got to figure
safety is a factor. We have two medical helicopters; both are grounded
because of the high winds because it wouldn't be safe for the patient or
the flight crew to fly in these conditions."
All three patients transported to
Roanoke Memorial were done so via ground.
"We have the same critical care
equipment in some of our ambulances that we have in the helicopters,"
Earnhart said. "The patients have the benefits of the same level of
care, the same technology in a ground ambulance, but you do have a
longer trip. Again, you have to weight the safety of the flight versus
the time factor and when it's unsafe to fly you just simply can't do
it."
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