A Wild Night in the Accident Room

A Wild Night in the Accident Room

I did my emergency medicine residency training at Charity Hospital in New Orleans. It was a big, inner-city teaching hospital that was always very busy with lots of sick people to take care of. Most of the surgical and traumatic problems were taken care of in the part of the emergency department known as the Accident Room.

One night, while I was on duty in the Accident Room, gunshots blasted out followed by screaming. People scattered in all directions. Others froze, too afraid to go anywhere. Soon, there was a swarm of police pressing in with guns drawn. I was kind of freaked out but also very curious about what was going on.

As it turned out, a prisoner who was there for medical care had asked his guard to let him go to the bathroom. When one of his hands was free, he jumped the guard, got his gun, pistol whipped him, fired off two shots and ran away with the gun. One of the bullets wounded an innocent bystander who had only come into the hospital to poop.

After things settled down, I took care of the injured cop who felt really bad about having let the guy get away. I also took care of three people who were trampled in the stampede that followed the gunshots. It took several hours before people were not afraid to leave the hospital as they thought the escapee might still be outside somewhere. That was a wild night.