By Justin Schoenberger, The Free Press, Kinston, N.C.
Jul. 26–At 3 a.m. on July 6, Kinston police responded to a report that seven men were at Lenoir Memorial Hospital’s emergency department.
They were each being treated for gunshot wounds.
And while only four actually stayed at LMH (two were transferred to Pitt County Memorial Hospital’s trauma center and one to Goldsboro), all of them triggered a facility-wide shift in hospital procedure called restrictive access mode.
“Restrictive access mode is what happens whenever someone comes in who is a potential threat to hospital safety,” director of security Glenn Clark said, adding that assailants sometimes follow victims to the hospital. “How soon we get into it depends on how the victims are transported to the hospital. Sometimes we have warning, sometimes we don’t.”
If a shooting victim is brought in by ambulance, police are dispatched by the 911 call center at the same time emergency medical technicians are. Law enforcement monitors the situation closely and works to ensure the safety of medical personnel.
The hospital, in turn, receives full warning that a shooting victim is en route and can prepare for his or her arrival. This is ideal for the emergency department, said E.R. Manager Christina Miller.
“EMS will not transport from the scene of a shooting until police say the scene is safe,” Miller said. “If a person is shot, Lenoir County EMS will respond, but the scene has to be secure before they will actually go in and treat the patient.
“Usually law enforcement is right behind the ambulance once they bring the person (to the emergency room).”
However, if shooting victims are self-transported — that is, if they did not come to the emergency room by ambulance — the hospital cannot prepare for their arrival and is forced to adjust accordingly.
“Law enforcement is notified whenever a shooting victim comes here,” Miller said. “But our first call will be (that) the patient is brought back and treatment is started. The next call will be to Lenoir County communications to say we have someone who’s been shot or stabbed, then they respond to it.”
Regardless of how dangerous a situation may be without police presence, the hospital’s main concern is to help the patient. While E.R. doctors and nurses are often aware that there could be an impeding police investigation following a shooting victim being brought in, taking care of an injured person is what’s most important to them.
Nurses will bag personal belongings of someone who has been shot, which police may use as evidence in a criminal case, but it’s not a priority.
“Hospital staff will go out and pull a gunshot victim out of the backseat of a car and put themselves in harm’s way because that is necessary to the life of the patient,” Miller said. “We don’t care if you’re the shooter or the person that was shot. It doesn’t matter to us.”
Restrictive access mode is felt throughout the hospital. Security personnel controls the access people have to the treatment areas — specifically, the number of individuals allowed there. No visitors are permitted in or out of the emergency department until the hospital staff — and police department, if necessary — feels comfortable there is no longer a threat from whoever may have been the assailant.
“That presents a challenge because you have to control the access, but you can’t lock people into a place,” Clark said. “We use all of our resources with local security as well as the Kinston Police Department and Lenoir County Sheriff’s Deputies to help us control the access.”
Family and friends of shooting victims may also want to enter the emergency department while it’s under restrictive access.
“Their access is controlled as well,” Clark said, adding that making sure a person is at each entrance is fundamental in securing the hospital. “That’s really how we control it.”
When minors are involved in an incident that spurred restrictive access state, Clark said the hospital makes sure parents of the victim are allowed to see their son or daughter and are escorted to their room. Sometimes nurses and doctors will ask for a family member to be present if a patient is in serious condition.
“No (non-family),” Clark said. “The policy is as-is. We don’t let anybody back there until the nursing staff and police feel that the threat is no longer a viable threat.”
Usually, only three hospital security officers are on duty at once, but law enforcement assists regularly to make up the difference. Clark said the Kinston Department of Public Safety is a big help to hospital security — particularly when a shooting victim is in-house.
“You want to make sure the assailant is no longer a threat to the victim,” Clark said. “You have to be real careful of that because these days, people will follow their victim.”
Assistant Kinston Police Chief Annette Boyd said lawmen are a large part of LMH’s procures for handling people who have just been shot. Not only do police secure scenes of shootings and provide security at the hospital, but they offer protection to the victim after he or she is released.
“Police stay at the hospital as long as the suspect is at large,” Boyd said, noting that cops often give first aid to victims before EMS arrive. “We stay with (victims) once they leave or if they ask us to. Most end up going their own way and don’t want us to follow them — but we would help anybody who requests it.”
Despite the differences in procedures when the hospital falls into restrictive access mode, Miller maintains that the quality of care remains the same — it just happens a little bit quicker.
“It really doesn’t affect us,” Miller said. “The flow of the emergency room remains the same. We still have to prioritize patients according to our same system, so you’re still going to get the same level of care, still going to get taken back in the same fashion as it would be on any other given day.
“Everybody’s just working a little bit faster.”
Justin Schoenberger can be reached at (252) 559-1075 or [email protected].
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