Jul 28, 2008 5:58 pm US/Central
HCMC Doc Recalls Helping Pregnant Collapse Victim
(WCCO)
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Dr. Steve Sterner said the seven most critical patients came in first to HCMC.
CBS
As we mark the one year anniversary of the Interstate 35W bridge collapse, a doctor at Hennepin County Medical Center talks about what it was like in the emergency room that evening.
Dr. Steve Sterner said the seven most critical patients came in first.
"We were really going as fast as we could go. All of them had bad head injuries. All of them were either unresponsive or had very altered mental status. They all needed to be intubated. They all needed to be on a ventilator, resuscitated, big lines and then they either needed to go to the OR or the CT scan, and then the OR from here," said Sterner.
The first patient Sterner treated was Tina Hickman, who was eight months pregnant. She had many injuries and needed to be intubated, and her unborn baby was in distress.
"We seemed to have stabilized mom pretty well for that point in time, the baby was not stabilized. We made a very quick decision to have obstetrics take her to the operating room and do a c-section, and quite honestly it was done very quickly and saved the baby's life," said Sterner.
Both mother and baby survived. Sterner said 1,000 HCMC employees showed up to help that night.
He thinks they all felt proud of the work they did and he's not sure they could have managed it much better than they did.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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