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CONCORD — A telephone call from his oldest son woke Dr. Hector Henry late Saturday night, minutes after a pedestrian bridge collapsed at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
Concerned for his middle son, who was at Saturday night’s race at the speedway, Henry got up and prepared to go to NorthEast Medical Center, where he is vice president of medical affairs.
About a minute later, Henry said this morning, another hospital official called to inform Henry of the accident and to tell him NorthEast Medical Center had swung into disaster mode.
Henry rushed to the hospital on Concord Parkway. What he saw when he arrived, he said, was an “unbelievable scene to me ... and I’ve been here a long time.”
Henry, chief medical officer for the N.C. National Guard, compared the scene to a military exercise.
“When I got down to the emergency room, it was like a disaster drill,” Henry said. “There were people with broken bones extruding from their skin, compound fractures.”
Fortunately, Henry’s son wasn’t injured. He was still inside the speedway when the bridge folded down onto the southbound lanes of U.S. 29 about 11:15 p.m.
But plenty of people did get caught in the mess of concrete and chain-link fence. Emergency crews took at least 101 patients to five area hospitals.
Within minutes of the disaster, said hospital spokeswoman Carol Lovin, doctors, nurses, lab technicians, radiologists, even clergy, psychologists and media relations personnel were mobilized and on their way.
Northeast took in 48 patients in all, 11 with critical injuries. A few people suffered head injuries; most of the seriously hurt had broken bones.
Doctors treated and released 20 patients, admitted 22 others and transferred six critical patients to other hospitals.
“But now, I’m pleased to say we don’t have any critical patients here,” Lovin said. “They’ve all been upgraded.”
In Charlotte, Carolinas Medical Center treated 28, admitting 21; University Hospital treated 12, admitting five; and Presbyterian Hospital received three patients from NorthEast.
Carolinas Medical Center reported two patients in critical condition today. One patient at Presbyterian is in critical but stable condition and two are in stable condition, a hospital spokeswoman said.
Rowan Regional Medical Center received 10 patients, treating and releasing all but two.
Lynn Ketner, 35, of Kernersville, remains hospitalized in good condition with a broken pelvis, broken right arm and lacerations.
Doctors transferred another patient, 27-year-old Tina Blevins of Winston Salem, to Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem in serious condition with a lower back injury.
Rowan Regional went into “minor disaster” status, calling in extra nurses, a trauma surgeon, an orthopedist and staff physicians, who handled patients other than the bridge-collapse victims, said Brian Wilson, emergency room manager.
The hospital also had patient advocates on duty to help calm and assist the victims, said hospital spokeswoman Kristen Kitchen. The victims who weren’t admitted received treatment within an hour.
“We were ready when the patients arrived,” Wilson said. “We were ready, and our planning worked.”
At NorthEast, Lovin said, two or three doctors typically are on duty in the emergency room on Saturday night. After the declared disaster, between 30 and 40 physicians arrived.
In addition, 80 to 90 nurses, radiologists and other staff provided clinical care. Hospital and Motor Racing Outreach clergy comforted patients and their families, and psychologists tended to emotional needs.
Lovin said what happened Saturday night is exactly what’s supposed to happen in a disaster. The hospital prepares for just such a disaster, with frequent drills which staff members aren’t told are drills.
“Whether it’s a drill or the real thing, that happens every time,” she said. “That is the sort of thing that makes it easier when a true disaster happens.”
Saturday night’s was the second real disaster in less than a week for NorthEast. Around midnight Wednesday, a tour bus carrying students from Georgia crashed on I-85, sending around 40 people to the hospital.
After drills, or actual disasters, hospital officials evaluate their response, she said. They haven’t evaluated the latest one yet, but Lovin said the staff members “were marvelous. Things went very smoothly.”
Henry agreed. When he arrived, he said, patients sat quietly as doctors, nurses and others buzzed around them, even as more patients “poured in” four and five at a time by ambulance.
He praised the work not only of those providing medical care but also of housekeepers and maintenance workers who made sure doctors and nurses had the space to do their jobs.
Representatives of three orthopedic equipment vendors came in the early morning hours and stayed as long as needed, providing surgeons with the equipment required to perform 15 initial surgeries between 1 a.m. and 5 p.m. Sunday.
“They did go above and beyond the call of duty,” Lovin said. “When we needed things quickly, they got up and came in, and this is completely above and beyond their protocol.”
But that’s what happens when catastrophe strikes a community, Lovin said. That’s what the hospital prepares for, and what it hopes for, if it has to deal with tragedy.
“Lots of times in a disaster, people do things they don’t ordinarily do,” she said. “People were just absolutely willing to do whatever they needed to do for the patients, and I think that’s why it went so well.”
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