Authorities held a news conference Monday morning at Lake Martin Community Hospital following a mass shooting in Dadeville, Alabama that left four dead and 28 injured. You can watch the full news c…
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*Audio is very low. Speaker talking about hospital transports and health care staff.
Transcript of hospital press conference --
Good morning. Welcome, everybody, to Lake Martin Community Hospital here in Dadeville, Alabama. As you all know, this was the city that had a great tragedy over the weekend. The hospital has been available to help families, friends, as well as many of the shooting victims.
Lake Martin did have 15 patients come through here on, let’s see, that would have been Sunday morning early and part of Saturday night. We had 15 teenagers that came through our emergency room, all of which had sustained gunshot wounds. Of those 15, we were able to treat 6 patients successfully. Treat them here and discharge them.
As you know, Mother Nature wasn’t on our side over the weekend. We had some rough weather. We had 9 patients that we needed to transfer out. Some of those transfers were a little bit delayed because, as you know we have a helicopter pad, but we could not fly the helicopter due to inclement weather. So, as soon as the weather kinda subsided, we were able to get most of those people transferred on out.
Of those 9 that transferred to other places, 5 of those were in critical condition and 4 were stable. And all 9 were placed in other hospitals. They went to sister facilities. In the healthcare world, hospitals—we’re all brothers and sisters. All healthcare workers are brothers and sisters because we help each other. We sent people to Baptist South in Montgomery, to Piedmont, to University of Alabama, as well as Children's Hospital.
At this time, here at Lake Martin Community Hospital, we don’t have any of those patients. And no fatalities here at our hospital. The hospital’s role right now will be to take care of our staff. Ivy Creek Healthcare, that owns Lake Martin Community Hospital, is a rural health organization here in the south, and our job is going to be to take care of our staff. It’s very traumatic in the healthcare setting, in the emergency room setting, when you have one gunshot wound come through. But when you have 15, and they’re all teenagers, our staff has been through a lot. They stood up like troopers. They did a fantastic job. They are heroes. The rural hospitals are heroes in this situation and will continue to be, but our job now is going to be to take care of our staff and to take care of our beloved community, the families and the friends.
Many of our staff attended the vigil that we had here last night in Dadeville, reached out to lots of family members. Over behind you guys, there’s a building. This is where Ivy Creek Hospice is located, and we’re going to be doing free counseling all day for family members of the victims, for children at the high school, and for our staff members. We’re getting ready to go here in about 30 minutes and take a crew that we’re so grateful for from East Alabama Medical Center. They've volunteered many of their counselors. We have skilled counselors from our detox unit. We have clergy from our hospice, and we’re going to take all those people, set up so that people can come by and receive counseling, and also go over to the high school and extend open arms to those children that are gonna arrive today to a tragedy. Many of them were present last night, and they’re going to have a tough week. It’s going to be a tough graduating year.
Do you all have any questions?
Q: How many doctors and nurses were working on the patients?
A: That evening we had a good crew. We had activated our emergency crisis situation that we have – we activated that, and we had 20 to 25 people working diligently. And also, we had a lot of people working remotely. The weather wasn’t pretty. We had many of our people that had gone to different locations, and they were able to work remotely to guide the staff, to consult. So, we had a lot more than what was just physically present here.
Q: I know you mentioned it was traumatic with one gunshot wound but when you have 15 teenagers with gunshot wounds, the staff goes through a lot. Can you talk a little bit more about that? What they went through?
A: I’m very sure that it’s difficult. I haven’t talked to a lot of them because we’ve all been very, very busy, as you can imagine. I just got a phone call from a staff member – a night shift member – that is staying over this morning. They want to be the first one in for counseling. Just to see so many of our healthcare providers have their own children, and I think just knowing that could have just as easily been one of your own children or your children’s friends, hits so close to home. Lots of parents and grandparents, and aunts and uncles here that can really put themselves in those people’s shoes. And hey, Dadeville is a very small community. It was just really difficult because everybody knows everybody, and seeing people come through the emergency room that you know… I think it was just very difficult. And like I said, they handled it like troopers. Everything I’ve heard has been very positive. They’ve received accolades from all over the country. Outstanding performance by our healthcare providers.
Q: About how long will y’all be offering the counseling here and at other locations like the high school?
A: As long as they need it, and as long as they request it. We want to take care of our community. That’s something that Ivy Creek is known for. Lake Martin Hospital has always been a community hugger, as I call it. And we will be here for them as long as need us. Graduation is coming up next month and this is confirmed -- I talked to one of the teachers last night at the vigil, and of those that passed away, all were seniors. So, it’s going to be a tough time for graduation for these kids, and we will be here for them and their families for the duration.
Q: Is this something you guys prepare for or something that you’ve never prepared for?
A: You know, it’s kind of like any death. You can’t really prepare for it, but you do practice for it. Our hospitals do have mass shooting practices. We have scheduled those, and we have a pretend shooter and those kind of things, and practice emergencies and crisis where we have a lot of people come in. But I don’t think it’s anything that you’re ever really prepared for. But we certainly do practice things like this, and I feel like that’s probably why it was executed with such expertise and professionalism. Because we hope it never happens, but we do practice for these type things.
Excellent question.
Q: Regarding the shooter, we haven’t been given much information on that. Do you have any word on the shooter?
A: I do not. I absolutely don’t. We’re questioning, ourselves, and watching the news just like everybody else. We do not have any information.
If there’s no further questions, we’re going to get to taking care of our folks. And we appreciate all the professionalism and the patience that you all have shown to us.
Thank you.
