Mass Chaos

A physician in Iraq blogs from the front lines (via Medpundit). This incredible story was from the attack in Mosul last week. Here were the grisly statistics that day:

91 total patients arrived.

18 were dead on arrival.

4 patients died of wounds shortly after arrival, all of these patients had non-survivable wounds.

Of the 69 remaining patients, 20 were transferred to military hospitals in other locations in Iraq.

This left 49 patients for us to treat and disposition.

9 surgeries performed in the operating room.

7 of which were open laparotomies, all of which had significant findings.

10 surgeries were performed outside of the operating room (multiple irrigation and drainage of shrapnel wounds and two finger amputations).

8 patients required mechanical ventilation.

14 chest tubes were placed.

39 CT scans were done.

Over 200 plain radiographs were done.

294 tests were performed by the lab.

40 units of blood products were transfused (32 units of PRBC’s, 4 units of whole blood, and 4 units of FFP).

217 intravenous medications were prepared by the pharmacists.

Over 300 total prescriptions were filled.

That would be a handful for any emergency room stateside. Now imagine all of that in the midst of mortar fire:

We had just started to get a good grasp of who needed to be transferred and where the patients were located when there was a large boom. Sounded like a mortar. Boom. Another mortar, a little closer. Boom. Yet another, sounding even closer. The fourth boom landed on the roof of the hospital and it was really friggin’ loud. I do not know how much it cost to build this hospital, but let’s just say it was well worth the expense.

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