Room 9 Revisited: UofL Hospital adapting, coping as gunshot wounds persist

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - When life is on the line, the staff at UofL Hospital faces some of the toughest challenges in the medical world.

Gunshot victims are among the most critical of patients.

When they arrive, those closest to death are taken to Room 9.

It's an emergency room within the emergency room. All the staff and equipment are consolidated there to bring people back to life as they're slipping away.

WAVE 3 News has had rare access to Room 9 before. In 2017, our journalists observed the controlled chaos caused by gun violence peaking in Louisville.

As the violence continues into a new decade, those in Room 9 have adapted, changing the way they do their jobs and cope with what they see almost daily.

On average, in 2018, there were only about three days a month when doctors didn't see a gunshot patient. The problem is shaping up to be almost just as bad in 2019.

WAVE 3 News visited once again on a Saturday night in August.

Observing controlled chaos

A voice over the intercom sent a jolt of adrenaline through the building.

"Room 9," the announcement said.

Doctors, nurses and technicians sprung into action, preparing for what may have become a display of just how fragile life can be.

"Time is so important," Martin Huecker, an attending physician at UofL Hospital, said.

Minutes later, an ambulance with sirens blaring rushed toward the hospital.

Soon after, a growing light in the sky revealed a helicopter was soon arriving.

In just the first few hours of the night, doctors treated gashes, a broken leg from a motorcycle wreck and a person found unresponsive.

"Hey, open your eyes," staff members yelled, trying to wake an unconscious woman.

The most critical of these patients will follow the direct path into Room 9.

Workers there are no strangers to pain, and they've all seen blood.

So, they know, just as calm sets in, another life-or-death situation can play out again.

"EVS. Room 9," another announcement over the loud speaker rang out. "Bay 1. EVS Room 9. Bay 1, please."

This time, the hospital's first responders were met with even more urgency because a man shot in both legs was on the way.

"We are nine minutes out," a radio transmission from an incoming ambulance communicating with Room 9 played out as staff members prepped the area.

“GSW. Both thighs," the radio traffic indicated. "Entrance wound to the right medial thigh. Entrance wound to the left outer thigh."

As the patient arrives, so does a new intensity.

"Everyone is a little more on edge," Hueker said. "You know that this patient could crash."

Technicians look for shrapnel with an ultrasound, blood is pumped back into his body and X-rays show bullets have broken his bones.

"Raising children and reflecting, I'm like, 'Oh my gosh this is some stressful stuff,'" Hueker said. "What we see. What we are a part of."

While the dire situation plays out, UofL Hospital Community Health Workers ensure those close to victims don't take their anger to the streets.

"Retaliation is real," KJ Fields, a Community Health Worker, said.

"The family members are mad," Geoffrey Ntama, who holds the same position, said. "They are saying, 'We lost our young man whom we were expecting to be taking care of us in the future.'"

Ntama said he draws from his past to confront it all.

"I started working with genocide survivors in Rwanda when I was like 20-something," Ntama said.

Half a world away, he's using the same skills in Louisville to help those close to death.

The gunshot victim shot in both legs would survive through the night.

Another one who showed up without warning would live, too, but the issue has been unrelenting.

An Unrelenting Issue

UofL Hospital states it's admitted 161 gunshot patients during the first half of 2019. In the three months that have followed, it has admitted 36 patients in July, 41 in August, and 30 in September. That brings the total number of patients through the first three quarters of the year to 268.

If the trend continues at the same rate, the number of total gunshot victims admitted would be approximately 357 patients, the highest number admitted to the hospital in the decade.

"Going out and telling the mother of an 18-year-old that he died from a gunshot," Hueker said. "I don't know a good way to do that."

Over the past 10 years, the trend is upward. In 2018, UofL Hospital admitted 321 gunshot wound patients. In 2017, it admitted 325.

According to UofL data, this is the number of gunshot victims admitted over the past decade:

2010 - 236; 2011 – 202; 2012 – 218; 2013 – 181; 2014 – 204; 2015 – 242; 2016 – 304; 2017 – 325; 2018 – 321; 2019 – 268 (January through September), 357 (projection based on statistics through September).

Source: UofL Hospital

The data doesn't include victims who were treated and released, or people killed by gunshots, before arriving at the hospital.

A hospital healing and responding

So, the university is collecting data, studying how to treat gunshot victims and teaching students about trauma earlier in its medical school program.

In the past two years, they’ve also hired more community health workers.

"We cry with them," Ntama said. "We laugh with them. They are part of our families."

Ntama said that can be tough, but he also gets to celebrate the good in people's lives.

The whole trauma team recently did just that with Cierra Twyman five years after a shooting could've left her dead.

"I remember laying on the porch with my baby in my hands," Twyman said, during an interview after the shooting.

Twyman said just this year a bullet was removed from her own body. She said PTSD still makes it hard to even go to family gatherings.

Twyman survived, but her 16-month-old daughter Ne'Riah did not.

"She loved everybody," Twyman said. "I want kids to be able to run around like you know kids should be able to do."

During a fall event, she thanked staff for her two children, who've come into the world never knowing their sister.

To Twyman, it's a second chance at motherhood.

"I was looking for this moment to thank all of y'all," Twyman said, breaking down in tears. "The ones I remember that came to my bedside."

She emphasized her gratitude was directed at those around her, who she said love what they do.

"I feel like I'm filling my gaps," Ntama said. "So, solving is part of my calling."

It's a calling that can be bittersweet, because if the trend continues, another gunshot victim will be on the way soon.

Another life possibly in the balance, causing trauma workers to experience what onlookers might say is traumatic itself.

"We understand their pain because we are survivors, too," Ntama said.

Survivors that whenever called upon will be ready in Room 9.

The night WAVE 3 News visited Room 9 was the same night false social media posts were made that a mass shooting had happened at the Kentucky State Fair.

Doctors said they’ve luckily never had to deal with a situation like that actually happening, but are prepared to, if it does.

Copyright 2019 WAVE 3 News. All rights reserved.