The Boston Marathon Bombings
Hi everyone, it’s Breehan
The Boston Marathon bombings occurred on April 15, 2013, a terrorist attack caused by pressure cooker bombs set off on the street near the marathon’s finish line by two young men. Three people died almost instantly and over 170 people were injured.
Although many had to have amputated limbs, many suffered from hypovolemic shock, some had to be resuscitated and some had significant burns. However, every one of the 170 injured people survived.
A 2013 article by the New Yorker magazine explained the prompt and heroic efforts of the healthcare workers, including many nurses’ quick thinking and actions that saved these peoples’ lives.
A silver lining to the tragedies of 9/11 and the shooting at the movie theatre in Aurora, Co. is the fact that healthcare workers were/are better prepared for acts of terrorism on American soil. Pre-hospital emergency healthcare workers quickly turned the runners’ first-aid tent into a mass-casualty triage unit.
Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General’s nurses, doctors, techs and other staff immediately heard of the incident through social media and designated themselves into teams to prepare for triaging patients as well as the many emergency surgeries that were to come. They quickly cancelled the scheduled surgeries and patients due to come in that day and focused on the tasks at hand.
Nurses stayed on late and those who had the day off came in to help and stayed for multiple days, taking turns to sleep and eat.
Because of the successful and quick responses, I don’t see any specific barriers for the patients to access the much-needed emergency care. The survivors were all extremely lucky.
From a socioeconomic perspective, I think that being in a large affluent city where there are world-class hospitals and healthcare professionals was a huge help. I have no doubt that unfortunately if this had occurred in a rural town or in a third-world country that lacked such prompt and competent resources, then many more casualties would have occurred.
If I were a nurse on-scene during this tragedy, I feel like I would definitely be ready. My passion is emergency medicine and feeling like I am actually saving someone’s life would be an amazing feeling not only to help that patient but for their family and loved ones. I think with the proper training, I could remain calm, especially with my team by my side.
I do feel like we are prepared for the next disaster. It is sad that these incidents do occur but like I stated before, the only silver lining is that we as nurses are ready to run in to help while others run out.
Here is a link to the article if you want to read further. It is a well-written interesting article: http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-bostons-hospitals-were-ready
Reference
Gawande, A. (2013, April 17). Why Boston’s Hospitals Were Ready. The New Yorker. p. 14-17.
