Hospitals stretched to the limit

IT was more like a scene from an episode of ER than one from a real-life hospital in a small college town.

“Nobody had ever seen anything like this before,” chief executive for Montgomery Regional Hospital Scott Hill said. “You can never adequately prepare for this level of violence.”

On a day where too many died at the scene, many more were taken, injured and bleeding, to the hospital. It was a process hindered by the weather. High winds prevented the use of helicopters to move patients, Mr Hill said.

Dr Joseph Cacioppo, an emergency doctor at Montgomery, was stunned when victims began pouring in.

“The injuries were just amazing. This man was brutal. There wasn’t a shooting victim that didn’t have less than three bullet wounds in him,” Dr Cacioppo said.

Not all of the injuries were life-threatening.

“We saw one patient that had a bullet wound to the wrist, one to the elbow and one to the thigh. We had another one with a bullet wound to the abdomen, one to the chest and one to the head,” Dr Cacioppo said.

Seventeen of the wounded remained hospitalised on Tuesday, and at least one of those patients was to be released last night, Mr Hill said.

All of the nine patients at Montgomery, including three who had been critical, were now in stable condition, he said.