Forty-nine people were killed and 53 were injured in a shooting at Pulse, an Orlando, Fla.-based LGBT nightclub early Sunday morning. A SWAT team killed the gunman, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, at the scene.
Treating victims of bombings and mass shootings like the one in Orlando is becoming increasingly commonplace in U.S. hospitals, according to U.S. News & World Report.
"Hospitals are preparing and recognizing the need to prepare for these kinds of events," Jay Kaplan, MD, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians, said, according to the report. "It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. That's a sad commentary in that it's a reality."
Even Orlando Health's Orlando Regional Medical Center, which took in most of the victims after Sunday morning's mass shooting, had been preparing for such an attack, U.S. News & World Report notes. Those preparations include weekly trauma simulation, regular all-hospital preps, along with city-wide simulations that cover all possible situations.
Matthew Powers, interim executive director at the Emergency Nurses Association, told U.S. News & World Report that emergency drills have increased in particular since 12 people were killed in a 2012 mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo. "It became unfortunately more prevalent and, therefore, many hospital associations began to provide tools for hospitals to better prepare training standards," he told the publication.
Kathleen Carlson, the association's president, echoed Mr. Powers. She told U.S. News & World Report more than four decades ago hospitals tended to have one annual drill to prepare for these kinds of incidents, but now, in addition to drills, many hospitals hire people to specifically handle emergency management. Hospitals also typically offer counseling to their staff, patients and loved ones after a mass shooting.
But David Callaway, MD, who is on the American College of Emergency Physicians' High Threat Emergency Casualty Care Task Force, points out in the report that sometimes no amount of training or research can mentally prepare healthcare providers for what they will experience.
"At the end of the day, you must rely on your training, your team and your moral compass to guide you through the event," he told U.S. News & World Report.
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