Thinking of you from across The Pond.

To our colleagues in the midst of handling the fallout from this crisis, we are with you in spirit. Stay strong.

To the cowards who produced these circumstances, this is unacceptable!!!!!

To those this tragedy has affected, thoughts and prayers are with you.

Amen...

My 2 daughters, 3 nieces, and 6 of their friends were in Boston for a girls-getaway weekend, which they do every Patriots Day. An hour before the bombings, they were cheering on the runners directly across the street from where the second one detonated. Thank God when the bombs went off they had gone for a drink a few blocks away. The night before, they had walked by the sites and sat in the bleachers, literally inches from where the bombs went off. Very scary, creepy, and way too close to home.

Thank God they were okay Phil.

I know Cliff is from MA. Is he from Boston?

Not sure if Cliff is from Boston or elsewhere. I know Lisa M is from very near that area as some of her treatment took place at Mass. General I think I remember.

Hang in there folks and keep doing the awesome jobs I am sure you are doing.

Brigham and Women's maybe.

I believe it is the Brigham. They got a lot of the victims. I knew a few people in town Monday, thank God all are OK. There was some potential for us (in New Hampshire) to get some cases if the thing had been a much larger event. Glad that did not have to happen.

LisaM was fine (FaceBook friend of mine). But what has now happened in Waco? When is this all going to end?

Cliff

Are you OK? You must be very busy with the incident..

There was an article posted by The New Yorker about the Boston hospitals' response to the bombing. I will try to attach it here.Why Boston Hospitals were ready.docx

I hope that the upgrade of the software means that Cliff is ok.

Malcolm,

The incident in Waco was a fertilizer plant fire that progressed to tragedy.  I have not heard any report of malicious activity related to this incident, but a full investigation will ensue I am sure.

Not hearing from Cliff for a couple of days made me wonder what this site would do without him (among other sad thoughts).  Cliff, do you have an understudy?

Thanks to all for your thoughts and prayers.....

 

We are strong---BOSTON STRONG!

 

Yes, Cliff and I are BWH'ers (Brigham and Women's Hospital) we had 10 trauma rooms going on Monday evening---an unusual occurrence, to say the least!!!!!

 

----By day I am Blood Bank at a neighboring Boston hospital, by night I am a Chemistry specialist at BWH. We were on lockdown all day Friday----having SWAT teams in your hospital and State Police manning the doors is still surreal to me, but that is what we endured all week last week and culminating Friday night. We are recovering----but it will be a while before we get back to "normal".......we are so fortunate to have had the resources to absorb the influx of injuries. From First responders to the trauma teams to the ancillary services, we pulled together and saved a lot of people.

 

Here's to hoping that no other city goes through anything like what we just did......thanks again for all your support!

 

 

The fact that none of the victims of the Marathon Bombing sent to area hospitals died afterwards is a huge congratulations to our colleagues at those facilities.  I know my fellow Blood Bankers, Med Techs, and phlebotomists deserve a big thank you on behalf of our profession especially during National Medical Laboratory Week.  Some day post what you learned about the experience both as techs and spiritually. 

From your colleagues in Arkansas!

Thanks to all for your thoughts.  I'm at Boston Medical Center, we received 23 severely injured.  Cliff is at Brigham and Women's and I think they got a similar number.  As others have said, you never think it's going to be in your own backyard.  All the Boston hospitals were terrific - you are right that no one died after the fact once we got them.  But the real saving grace was the medical tent and a fleet of waiting ambulances at the finish line of the marathon.  All the emergency rooms in Boston brace for dehydrated and hypothermic runners at the end of the race. Without the immediate response of these EMTs, RNs, MDs, many more would have died.

We used 72 units of red cells that first night.  Somewhat more than our trauma room normally uses! 

 

One great point - we practice at least a couple of times a year for a mass casualty event.  Our system was not perfect, but better than anyone anticipated due to the disaster training and planning.

 

Plan for the worst, hope for the best. 

 

The outpouring of support from everyone has been asstounding and humbling.  We utilize the AABB National Blood Exchange for 99% of our blood products.  Blood centers across the country were calling us and offering us O's.

 

Our sports teams - Red Sox, Bruins, Celtics - have had incredible receptions at other city arenas.  Incredible!!

THANK YOU!!    

 

We are not alone.  You are with us.  We are BOSTON STRONG!!

Great post kate murphy.  You humble us.

Our hearts turned instantly to the victims and those of you taking care of them.  We are so glad that your training and practice paid off. If you identified anything else that worked well or poorly it would be great if you could share.  How good was the information coming in about what cases you might be getting?  Were you able to do any planning for what was coming?

Having worked in Boston , I had no doubts but that the hospitals would be able to rise to this sad occassion. My daughter is a physician at MIT. She was actually in NY at the airport when the bombings happened. When the shootout happened she said it was unreal, continuous sirens and helicopters overhead. She got a text from MIT that night,saying don't come to work. Pretty scary. Hope and pray that this is truly over. Also pray for the folks in West Texas.

The photographs and news about Boston bomb blast killings have rekindled thoughts, horror and nightmare that only those who have endured bomb blast can understand. Although I am not in Boston physically, I am there...been there...

 

I pray for all victims and their families, also doctors and other paramedics, and our BB Talk friends for taking their care. May God bless you all with strength to get through and over this calamity. Our hearts go out to you all - Chris, Linda and Kate Murphy.

The info we were getting was not much - the wounded came in so fast, there really wasn't time to get details.  We got 7 critically injured in 15 minutes.  Within 45 minutes, all the badly wounded were at some ER in the city.

 

We learned we need to practice more with the ER - a REAL practice, with REAL coolers, runners, emergency release forms, wristbands.  The ER staff was so focused on the patients, but so chaotic, that even getting a disaster wristband on a patient was not the priority for them.  We've done 1 "live action" drill but others have been table top.  Even the live action drill was not REAL - nurses stuck post-it notes on the victims - "transfused 2 rbc" but did not get the BB into the act.  Not a real test of the system.

 

On Monday, at the first disaster page, we got coolers ready - we had no idea how many injured or how badly they were injured.  We set up 10 coolers of 4 units of O's.  We have 4 AB FFP thawed at all times (our trauma center is always busy), but immediately started thawing 16 more. The ER wanted the coolers immediately - before the patients hit the door even.  They had no patient name, med record number, disaster number, nothing.  They thought we were unresponsive when we would not send just a cooler of O's.  So we need to work with them on a system that meets both our responsibilities - theirs treating the patients and ours tracking the units/patients.  Our path residents were a helpful liason with the ER.

 

In 30 minutes, all critical injured were in the OR - each with dedicated team.  Incredibly fast - and much smoother there, At this point we had good info on all the patients - how many amputations, bowel resects, vascular shrapnel injuries.

 

So the real lesson we learned is that practice really does help, and the more "real" the practice is, the better.  Develop contacts in the ER and work with them, so they know you and trust you - you WANT to give them the blood, but you NEED some info to do it! 

 

We are all on the same team! 

I know Cliff is from MA. Is he from Boston?

 

I work in Boston, fortunately for me I was off last week.  We are one of the Level 1 trauma centers, so we got patients / victims.

Not hearing from Cliff for a couple of days made me wonder what this site would do without him (among other sad thoughts).  Cliff, do you have an understudy?

 

Nope, I do this all on my own.  When I go, I suspect so will the site.

So true Kate. It's teamwork, can't be handled otherwise.