Archive for December, 2008
Super Sad
Our director of trauma surgery at Penn died in Irag this week.
He was pretty rad. I will miss him…a lot.
This is an article he wrote about philly and the war outside our front doors.
The War in West Philadelphia
By John P. Pryor
Sunday, August 5, 2007
I didn’t hear the cars screech to a halt, but one of the trauma nurses did. He ran outside with two emergency department medics to find several people in a car, all of their clothes soaked with blood. The passengers were screaming for someone to help the young man in the front seat, who was unresponsive. The team threw the limp victim onto a gurney, one of several that stand waiting for these types of scenarios, which occur almost nightly at our trauma center.
As the gurney rolled in, I saw a lifeless young man with more gunshot wounds than I could count. I was poised to start a resuscitation effort when a voice behind me announced that three more were coming in. As the team started CPR and checked for cardiac activity, the second and third victims were wheeled in.
A young girl had a gunshot wound to the abdomen that made her writhe in pain. Her movements were slow and her mental functioning was impaired, signaling to me that she was in profound shock — she was dying. I caught only a passing glance of the third patient, who had a gunshot wound to the neck and was coughing up blood. Those brief images were enough for me to sum up a desperate situation; I pronounced the first patient dead to concentrate resources on the other critically injured.
The nursing staff rolled the dead man’s body into a bed and readied the stall for the fourth patient, who had three gunshot wounds to his right arm and two to his left. With the emergency medicine physicians, surgery residents and medics working on the two critical patients, I assigned the fourth patient to a capable medical student who courageously accepted the battlefield promotion to intern.
In the swirl of screams and moving figures, my mind drifted to my recent experience in Iraq as an Army surgeon. There we dealt regularly with “mascals,” or mass-casualty situations. In Iraq, ironically, I found myself drawing on my experience as a civilian trauma surgeon each time mascals would overrun the combat hospital. As nine or 10 patients from a firefight rolled in, I sometimes caught myself saying “just like another Friday night in West Philadelphia.”
The wounds and nationalities of the patients are different, but the feelings of helplessness, despair and loss are the same. In Iraq, soldiers die for freedom, for honor, for their country and for their buddies. Here in Philadelphia, they die without honor, without purpose, for no country, for no one.
More young men are killed each day on the streets of America than on the worst days of carnage and loss in Iraq. There is a war at home raging every day, filling our trauma centers with so many wounded children that it sometimes makes Baghdad seem like a quiet city in Iowa.
Unlike the Iraq conflict, this war is not on the front pages of The Post or on CNN. You have heard of the Washington area sniper shootings and the massacre at Virginia Tech. I am sure you have not heard about the “Lex Street massacre,” in which 10 people ages 15 to 56 were lined up and shot, execution-style, in the winter of 2000. Seven were killed, three critically injured.
You haven’t heard about this tragedy because it happened to inner-city poor people in a crack house in Philadelphia. Imagine, for a moment, if this had occurred in a suburban shopping mall or if a Marine unit in Iraq had been involved. There would be shock, outrage, 24-hour news coverage, Senate hearings and a new color of ribbon to wear. That double standard, that triage of compassion and empathy, is why the war on the streets continues unabated.
I am on call Wednesday night. The statistics indicate that then I will once again walk with the chaplain to a small room off the emergency room. I will open a heavy brown door and make eye contact with a room full of people; a mother, perhaps a father or a grandmother. They will look at me with tears welling up, their knees weak, and lean forward while watching my lips, bracing for news about their loved one. I will remain standing and reach out to hold the mother’s hand. My announcement will be short and firm, the intonation polished from years of practice. The words will be simple for me to say, but sharp as a sword for them to hear; “I am sorry, your son has died.”
The writer directs the trauma program at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He served at a combat hospital in Abu Ghraib Iraq.
This is a link to his memorial site:
John:
* as a soldier, we respect and salute you.
* as a teacher, we seek to emulate you.
* as a visionary, we support you.
* as a surgeon, we recognize your master skills
* as a human, we applaud and memorialize your unique and lasting contributions.
ALMOST THE BIG DAY
I can’t believe it’s XMas eve already. Seems like yesterday we were picking up the tree at Jug Hill Farm. It’s an 11 footer thhis year. Yeah for high ceilings!
Hope everyone has an amazing night and tomorrow is everything you dream about…
FLYERS
We went to the Flyers game the other night for nurses appreciation night. It was a blast. These were our second set of seats. The first ones were 3 rows from the top and these ones were much better for my vertigo…ha
Thank god Val’s husband went because he filled us in on all the good things we would have never know since we haven’t followed much this season.
Carter
We got to hook up with Carter over the holidays and it is never a dull moment when he is around. We went out to a local bar in morristown with Carter and Foley. A few hours later and many beers and we were talking about turfing his new lawn again. Good thing I was sober and politely declined. He’ll thank me later! Especially now that he owns the house. We are looking forward to hanging with him in VT over new years!
Happy birthday little lady!
Leah turned one the other day. She is adorable and we miss her terribly. Kentucky is a lucky state to have the Card family…Thank god she is maintaining this gorgeous chubby look. I can’t imagine her without these squeezable cheeks. Although her brother grew out of his and he is still a heart breaker!
Wish we could have been there to celebrate with y’all! ha.
Long overdue.
Been a little busy lately but I am going to try and be better at this…
Meet Duncan.
My aunt and Uncle’s new puppy. He is crazy, loving, hilarious and sweet. We love him.
The giant scottie in the photo is ready. he is my grandmother’s neighbor’s dog. super fun and looks like a big mop. we love him too!
nice one…idiot
CHICAGO – Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested on Tuesday on charges that he brazenly conspired to sell or trade the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by President-elect Barack Obama to the highest bidder.
Blagojevich also was charged with illegally threatening to withhold state assistance to Tribune Co., the owner of the Chicago Tribune, in the sale of Wrigley Field, according to a federal criminal complaint. In return for state assistance, Blagojevich allegedly wanted members of the paper’s editorial board who had been critical of him fired.
A 76-page FBI affidavit said the 51-year-old Democratic governor was intercepted on court-authorized wiretaps over the last month conspiring to sell or trade the vacant Senate seat for personal benefits for himself and his wife, Patti.
Otherwise, Blagojevich considered appointing himself. The affidavit said that as late as Nov. 3, he told his deputy governor that if “they’re not going to offer me anything of value I might as well take it.”
“I’m going to keep this Senate option for me a real possibility, you know, and therefore I can drive a hard bargain,” Blagojevich allegedly said later that day, according to the affidavit, which also quoted him as saying in a remark punctuated by profanity that the seat was “a valuable thing — you just don’t give it away for nothing.”
The affidavit said Blagojevich also discussed getting a substantial salary for himself at a nonprofit foundation or an organization affiliated with labor unions.
No comments