One Bullet Can Kill, But It Takes More Than 100 People To Save A Gunshot Victim's Life [View all]
As Gabriela de Hoyos is transporting a gunshot victim on a stretcher back to the trauma bay, she tells the victim that they are going to live and everything will be OK. She tells them this no matter what.
“No one wants their last thought on Earth to be, I’m not going to make it,” de Hoyos, who worked as a trauma nurse at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center from 2016 to 2021, told BuzzFeed News.
De Hoyos is just one of the 100-plus people a gunshot victim may see from the time they are shot until they are fully recovered — part of the vast but largely hidden economic and psychological cost of gun violence. A single bullet wound sets in motion a long, labor-intensive process to try to save a life, a chain of support that includes police officers, security guards, trauma nurses, doctors, surgeons, therapists, more nurses, social workers, pharmacists, paramedics, and chaplains.
It’s a process that has become more frequent in recent years, especially since the start of the pandemic. In 2020, 45,000 people died from gun-related injuries in the US — the highest mark on record, a 14% increase from the year before, a 25% increase from 2015, and a 43% increase from 2010, according to the CDC. In Philadelphia, there were 562 homicides in 2021, 62 more than the previous single-year high-point, set in 1990, when murder rates across the country reached record levels. That means there is a homicide in Philadelphia every 16 hours, and at the University of Pennsylvania Presbyterian Medical Center, gunshot victims have consumed the trauma bay: 18% of the hospital’s trauma cases are gunshot patients.
Twelve medical workers at Penn Presbyterian who spoke to BuzzFeed News described gun violence as a daily reality that leaves a deep emotional impact on them.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/paigeskinner/gun-violence-medical-labor-photos
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I suppose now the gun humpers will argue that guns are good because they keep so many people employed! Read the article. It's sobering.
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