I kept a running tally, and when everything settled down, I confirmed my count: my surgical attending, an emergency medicine attending, two triage nurses, multiple EMTs, other junior surgical residents, two physician assistants, a recorder, more bedside nurses, an emergency medicine resident at the head of the bed, a medical student, the X-ray technologist, and others, including myself, a senior surgical resident to the patient’s left.
A young man had been shot in the leg. The headline might have read something to the effect of Another Victim of Gun Violence in Cleveland. He was bleeding but not catastrophically. His vitals were normal, his pulses intact, but his thigh was swollen and slightly deformed. He was anxious, naturally, and sweating profusely. The pain must have been unbearable judging by the creative strings of profanity he shouted through gritted teeth. Scout films confirmed a broken femur. Our orthopedic surgery colleagues joined us in the trauma bay and soon after booked him for surgery.
In the moments leading up to this trauma activation, I was glued to my phone, my main source of news from the front and sometimes the quickest way for me to learn about relatives and familiar neighborhoods. Fourteen killed in an airstrike, I’ll read. An entire building demolished. Two children missing, still buried in the rubble, presumed dead. And now another Israeli airstrike. This time the courtyard of a hospital. The casualty count can’t be confirmed; bodies are strewn everywhere. Are they dead or dying? Were they already here for medical care, only to become victims again? Who does this limb belong to? Continue reading “Twenty-Nine”