The Medical Response to Fort Hood

Dr. John Dale Dunn offers his praise via American Thinker for the people he works with who saved so many lives at Fort Hood yesterday:

Yesterday was beautiful warm blue, blue, make-you-happy, sky day in Texas. I was scheduled to work a shift at Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Hood, Texas, the busiest emergency department in the Army, at a base with always more than 50 thousand soldiers.

I have been a civilian contract emergency physician at Fort Hood since 2003. I teach Army Residents and students and mid level practitioners emergency medical practice, working alongside the main group of remarkable and able Army Physician Faculty, who do what I do, and are regularly deployed "down range" to support the Army mission in the field.

I was one of many physicians from the central Texas area who filled in during the hot war in Iraq, and I stayed on. I can't think of a better job than caring for and thanking thousands of soldiers and their families and teaching some of the finest specimens of American youth extant -- people who haven't forgotten the virtues and the concepts of duty, honor and country and make their parents and families proud. Somedays I am overcome by the good I see in these students and physicians in training. I am one lucky old doc.

Tragedy struck Fort Hood today, sudden, violent. I write of the best damn mass casualty drill that could be imagined, made so by extraordinary efforts in the face of a mountain of awful human carnage. Dozens of ambulances from everywhere, helicopters in the sky, soldiers and Army medics and paramedics working the scene with efficiency and competence and cooperation among area hospitals that allowed remarkable and effective evacuation, triage, use of resources and superlative resuscitation. I couldn't help but note and admire their performance -- and be happy they are my colleagues and friends in many cases.

I was very concerned after the first wave that we would be overwhelmed, but the regional ambulance and hospital physician help and dispersal of cases to surrounding hospitals made it possible for our hospital to achieve great success along with the successes of those other groups and facilities -- pitching in to care for more than 30 wounded. During the peak, easily more than 100 physicians, nurses, techs, aids, clerks housekeepers, security and so many soldiers and civilian workers worked feverishly at our hospital. They made a difference and saved lives.

Last night I left that emergency department so proud of what I saw, so damn proud of the US Army and the people who kept their cool, worked hard, and saved lives the way their fellow soldiers and their grateful families would hope. Not a slacker to be seen today, a massive effort to save our precious people. Leadership and intelligent decision making that kept the work distributed. It was just they way they like to outline a mass casualty drill in the book -- eye on the ball, manage resources, triage properly, focus on priorities for patient survival. It was good because there were so many there who were battlefield experienced and able. They were ready, they performed. So many great specialists came down to help. Nurses galore, one big patient care machine, humming along.

Heroes all. God bless them.