The medical emergency response to a situation
like this and what it calls for
right now, joining us on the
phone is Doctor Brent Kaczynski.
Yeah with Emergency Management at Texas
Children's Hospital just to give us
some insight perhaps and what emergency
responders would be dealing with and also
that staff that's at hospitals where
the children or others who were injured
were taken to good afternoon to you.
Doctor Kaczynski, thank you for joining us.
Thank you for having me.
I hate that we have to talk
on such terrible terms,
but we appreciate you offering
and making some observations for
us in a mass shooting like this.
An active shooter situation.
What would the response be
like there on the ground?
We know we had 14 people who were killed,
but what would that response look like?
You know, initially when something
horrific like this happens,
there's generally a tactical
EMS unit that goes in,
and this is a a divergent
or paradigm shift from.
Historically what we used to do
when we waited for things to be all
clear before entering the scene and
providing emergency medical services.
Those teams are equipped with
police officers, law enforcement,
and people trained in taking care
of acute injuries.
So the key there is that you're actually
getting to the folks as quickly as possible.
We know time is of the essence.
In these situations you need to
be able to control bleeding,
immobilize those that have
significant injuries and and triage
them on the scene so routinely.
What we do is we call disaster triage
to see what degree of injury they have
and be able to triage those patients
and who needs to get out first,
second, third,
so on and so forth,
and get to a casualty collection point,
or ultimately to a hospital.
Or they're going to be
able to get care provided
for that. Yeah, you talked about tactical
units going in immediately, doctor.
Kazinski that was instituted after
the Columbine shootings in Colorado
when there was a hesitancy to go in
with an unknown number of shooters
and exactly what's going on.
That simply has changed, obviously,
and we've had several shootings
in the two decades or so since we
heard that people that they've been
asking for folks to send blood in.
So talk about the necessity for
that under these circumstances.
You know, I think across the country,
we are always suffering from blood
supply shortages and any opportunity to
get folks in the community to donate.
Blood is helpful,
but in these situations in particular,
when you have a large number
of victims that may need large
amounts of blood transfusions,
but we call our massive transfusion protocol
a lot of times in in these situations,
you need a lot of blood,
not need it readily available.
A lot of times, in these situations,
the blood that's being donated
may not be used immediately.
Obviously it needs to go through
all the checks and balances that we
have to make sure things are safe,
but we know there's going to be
a pull on the local blood supply
secondary to an event like this
and it's doctor Kazini forgive
us so much happening here.
Fast and furious information coming in,
but Doctor Kazini going back to the need
for blood and then triage as well when
we talk about gun wound injuries right?
That is very different than other
injuries that we might have to
respond to an emergency situation.
And triaging and caring for those.
Yeah, definitely, and I think you
know one of the things that is.
Somewhat of a sad fact,
but I know you mentioned Sandy Hook earlier.
Oftentimes in these horrific
events in particular,
and elementary school aged children,
there aren't many survivors because
of the severity of these injuries
that they sustained on seeing and so,
unfortunately not many of
them survived these injuries.
I think you know.
First, I think of this response and this
incident and how horrific this is as
a parent of a four and seven year old.
Second, I think of it as a clinician,
and what it must be like to be in
that hospital that received those
those victims from the scene.
Recognizing that you know,
not all hospitals are fully equipped
to take care of a large scale
mass casualty incident like this.
And surely you know.
Dealing with the ongoing pressures of
the pandemic, the mental health crisis.
All of these other things.
Our emergency centers are are definitely
pushed to the limits already,
so adding something like this on
top of that is is just only more
salt in the wound, so to speak.
When something like this happens.
Compound matters, we're talking
about a relatively rural area.
This is a town of about 15,000 people,
so likely a much smaller hospital
and hence why some of those who
survived but were injured were
air transported to San Antonio.
Doctor Kazini with Texas Children's Hospital.
Thank you so much for providing this
information to us at this difficult time.
Thank you so much.