The Orlando shootings, as horrific as they were, would have been considerably worse if the Pulse nightclub, where Omar Mateen murdered 49 people and injured 53 before being killed by police, had not been so close to a Level 1 trauma center. There, in the words of The Tampa Bay Times, staff are always “poised to respond with an all-out, life-saving blitz of staff, expertise and equipment.”
“The morning of the shooting, a trauma surgeon was on call in the hospital, and a team of specially trained doctors, nurses and technicians were ready to execute a mass-casualty plan.”
“They would have never ever had the same number of survivors” if the shooting happened closer to a community hospital, Connie Potter, a national trauma expert, told the paper.
“They did surgery in the ICU. They did surgery in the ER. They were able to call in capable people and get them in there very quickly, and they had adequate supplies.”
The paper added: “The centers are also the subject of a major health policy debate over how many of them Florida needs and how that should be decided.”
To read The Tampa Bay Times article, hit this link.
