Covenant Children's PEDI ED

At about 4:15 PM, with a fairly full emergency department, a 15-year-old male staggered into triage of the CCH ED with a fresh gunshot wound to his left chest. Our senior charge nurse was at the 4 PM staff meeting and was thus not in the unit at the time. Five nurses, with varying experience but all under 30 years old, dropped everything and rushed to assist me in the trauma bay. Because we needed all hands, and our charge was away, we were on our own with this child for about 15 minutes. No trauma team, pharmacy, blood bank, lab, or radiology. If not for the incredible fast-acting skills of these nurses, this young man would have died. With no level-one trauma activation, and essentially on our own, we were able to obtain access in a profoundly hypotensive patient with thready pulses, provide rapid infusion of fluids, and give life-saving medications prior to any ancillary services being at the bedside. These nurses held the line until we had the manpower to emergently intubate, place a chest tube, and save this patient from going into cardiac arrest. The patient fully recovered. I am forever grateful for their readiness to respond at a moment's notice and the skills they exhibited in caring for him. I would trust them with my own child's life. They should be recognized.