region's trauma center. But, uh, when
you think about if they've ever had to
handle a mass casualty event like this,
uh, despite all the training, I I can't
recall one offhand with this many
people. A lot of people remember of
course the crash of 3407 but there were
no uh patients transported here
obviously because um all the um victims
of that crash were deceased. So again 16
patients at last count here at ECMC.
They do expect to start on time although
uh they haven't come uh from behind a
curtain uh just ahead of me yet but we
do expect to hear uh from them uh very
shortly. recording
>> and we're ready to begin.
>> Come on back.
>> Everybody else set up.
I'm Peter Cutler, senior vice president
of communications and external affairs
here at Erie County Medical Center, and
we're here today to provide you with an
update and briefing on the patients that
have been transported to Erie County
Medical Center from the uh crash
incident on the New York State
throughway earlier today in Pemrook. Our
first speaker will be our chief medical
officer, Dr. Sam Cloud, who I'll also
note has been a lifelong emergency
department physician himself, and he'll
be the first to speak. Dr. Cloud.
Good afternoon. First, my prayers are
with the patients and their families
after this terrible incident. I want to
first thank my colleagues in the prehosp
professions, police, fire, and EMS. They
rapidly work to give the patients in
this incident the best chance at
recovery. ECMC is the only adult level
one trauma center for Western New York.
We plan, we train, and we are prepared
to implement our plans for mass casualty
incidents, which we proved today. We
rapidly evaluated
trauma surgery and emergency medicine
and others who helped rapidly decompress
our emergency department so that we
could efficiently treat the influx of
injured patients. Also, thank you to
several uh ECMC ER doctors who actually
went to the scene to help triage
patients at the scene. Thank you to our
nurses, pharmacists, and all their staff
and all their staff that proved today
what an asset ECMC is for Western New
York. Lastly, thank you to our partners
at Kida Health who coordinated with us
and received patients to help keep us
decompressed. Thank you.
>> Thank you, Dr. Cloud. Our next speaker
is our chief of emergency medicine, Dr.
Jennifer Pew.
>> Hi, my name is Dr. Jennifer Pew. I'm one
of the um chief service of emergency
medicine at ECMC. Um again, our team
work together to provide care for all 24
patients coming in. We currently have 20
of those patients actively receiving
treatment. um imaging um evaluation by
the trauma service in the emergency
department and we likely have updates
later. Um two went to the I believe the
operating room and um we have um several
patients who went to the trauma ICU. Um
but luckily again with the um team um
many of our emergency medicine
physicians from our group um on scene
and those who joined us in the
department um we were able to take care
of all patients very quickly.
>> Thanks Dr. Pew. And our next speaker is
our chief of surgery, Dr. Jeff Brewer.
>> Yes. So, I just want to echo what Dr.
Cloud and Dr. Pew stated. You know, it
takes an army to mobilize what is
essentially usually a full hospital and
make space for 20 plus victims of a car
wreck. You know, the initial report was
that we had 50 plus patients coming,
which we were would have been able to
accommodate. Um, so everyone from the
housekeepers that keep the rooms cleaned
and turned over so we can get these
trauma bays utilized, uh, to the
neurosurgeons, the orthopods, all the
physicians that came down to help out
and the nurses and staff in the trauma
bays.
>> So now we'll open for any questions for
any of the three.
>> What kinds of injuries, excuse me, what
kind of injuries are you seeing? um you
know with blunt trauma like motor
vehicle collisions or a rollover like
this. Really any type of injury can be
seen. So we have some folks that have
some head injuries. Uh we have some
folks that have some extremity
fractures. Uh two patients are in the
operating room right now. Uh one with
internal injuries that are being managed
and one with a severe extremity injury.
And then we have uh several folks still
getting evaluated of lesser complexity
still in the uh in the emergency
department.
>> Those two most serious? I mean what are
their prospects at this point? Do we
know?
>> Uh I would expect that they would
recover.
>> Question.
>> Yeah. I mean, how did you make it all
come together here? Just, you know, you
work as a team obviously, but just
knowing how to evaluate each of those
situations of what those folks have.
>> So, uh we train for these. In fact, we
just had a uh mass casualty drill uh in
in July um where we actually bring
everyone together and um actually run
through the entire thing with patients
and ambulances arriving and uh then we
learn from those and we we postgame
those and uh Monday morning quarterback
them and look at ways we can improve and
uh so that when the rubber hits the road
and when the real thing happens like
today, we are prepared to uh be
professionals and to get the patients
rapidly evaluated and the ones that need
it to the ICUs and to the OS.
>> Um it um at the scene uh this tour bus
came from Niagara Falls. I'm not sure
which Niagara Falls, but it came from
Niagara Falls to New York City and we
were told it was loaded with people that
were from the Philippines, from the Far
East, from India. There was a language
barrier. Um I would imagine some of
those folks are here. And could you talk
a little bit about how you're dealing
with it become an issue for you and how
did you uh deal with that? Um many of
the patients were bilingual so they were
able to provide some history um in
English and then we also actually
utilized all of our translation services
through the entire hospital. We had
brought down so we had over um 15 or 20
translation devices actually more
translation devices than patients um
arriving available.
>> Sure. I know you train for this all the
time. Have you ever had a mass casualty
incident with this many patients at
once?
>> It's been it's been a long time. Yeah, I
can.
>> Can you recall any others that here?
>> Maybe not this many patients. Okay.
>> You know, but on a microscopic scale,
uh, we do this every day, right? So, any
patient that comes in here from a car
wreck or a gunshot or a fall, they're
evaluated in the same way.
>> So, you're just you're just multiplying
that.
>> And we we use force multipliers by
bringing all the assets we have in the
hospital. M
>> so we bring all the residents down on
the surgery they're in the hospital that
may be on other services all the
orthopedic physicians and their
residents came down so you just magnify
and multiply what you have in the
hospital things that we do every day
just on
>> good to know but the question was have
you ever had an incident with this many
at once
>> I've been here 25 years and sorry
>> I've been here 25 years this is and and
as Peter had mentioned I'm also a member
of the department of emergency medicine
this is probably the most uh trauma
patients we've had from one incident in
my career here at in Buffalo
>> over 25 years.
>> Over 25 years.
>> Can you talk about the the doctors that
went out in the field to the scene?
>> So we have or you you go ahead.
>> No, I can. It's from our department. Um
um so UV emergency medicine, we cover
multiple different sites including ECMC,
but we're fortunate to have an EMS
division and that group works directly
with our EMS um staff and they actually
deploy themselves right onto the scene.
So I believe we had six um physicians
from our group there helping with the
triage of patients. So they're able to
go directly to the bus um actually help
the EMS crews decide how serious the
patients injuries are. Um other
hospitals did receive patients with less
lesser injuries than ECMC but all the
critical patients they were able to
identify and scene identify who would
need mercy flight and then be
transferred here. So that was a huge
asset um having so many trained staff on
scene who are who have done these mass
casualty drills or have been part of
them not only in New York or other
states.
>> If you know how many Mercy flight
landings were here today
>> I believe we had four.
>> Four. Yeah.
>> Just to clarify the numbers real quick.
24 patients came in to ECMC. Two of them
went to the operating room. The two
others to trauma ICU. That's right.
>> And the the remainder are being
evaluated.
>> Yeah. We still have 20 um that are
currently in our department receiving
active care.
>> Do you know the breakdown because I I've
heard that you know some of course went
to Strong as well and and like you said
there were other hospitals involved. So
do you know the breakdown as far as um
how many like the percentages?
>> I I can't speak to the other hospitals.
I know we did receive the m majority of
the patients from what I'm hearing from
the physicians on the scene.
>> Yeah.
>> Were there any fatalities? If so, how
many?
>> Um I would I will probably direct that
to back to the um staff on the scene,
but we were told that there were um
several fatalities on the
>> I think New York State Police may have
that information for you from the scene.
Yes.
>> Anybody else? I know the Buffalo News
just arrived and so
>> you want to
And I I think to reiterate, I know this
question was asked, but we were able
with the new emergency department, we
went from a very small department in the
old um hospital um but now we have a 53
bed emergency department. We have four
large trauma bays. We were actually able
to clear every room with the help of our
medicine colleagues. So that if we did
receive all 50 plus patients, we would
have been ready. Um we're very fortunate
with the new setup um of the even the
ambulance area, we doing triage outside
and making sure patients were assigned
to the appropriate areas. We actually
designed this this new emergency
department uh for mass casualty
incidences. That was one of the primary
things we were thinking about when it
was designed so that we could have good
ambulance flow and patient drop off
right next to the area where they'd be
evalu evaluated for traumas. And so I
think today was proof of that concept
working.
>> Yeah. And of all the hospitals in the
market anyway, ECMC is the designated
mass casualty center for Western New
York. You know, and again, as Dr.
because I said earlier we are as I think
you all know the only level one adult
trauma center for western Europe orai
children's oshai children's is for
pediatric cases which would be 16 years
and younger but ECMC is for adults
any other questions
thanks everybody appreciate it
>> thank you
>> and thank you and in the advisory I sent
out you know the the links to the
biographies of all the three positions
so if you need any more information.
>> Send that to me.
>> Yeah. Yes. Did we talk earlier?
>> You guys,
my name is Lauren with the New York
Times.
>> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, why don't you
um Did we talk earlier? Yeah.
>> I did call. Yes.
>> Sorry. What do you need?
>> I just need you to get out of the shot.
>> Oh,
let's go over here.
Um,
so
>> okay, great.
>> Pete, when do we have to get out?
>> When do we have to get out? Now.
>> Well, I I mean it it it's expensive, so
I don't want to stay long, but um
you know, I got a five o'clock hit, so
should I should we leave? If you want,
if you want to do a five o'clock hit,
anybody else is I recommend doing
outside.
>> Just go out. Well, do we have to go on