When Denny Martin, DO, president of Sparrow Hospital, learned of the Feb. 13 shooting at Michigan State University in East Lansing, he immediately shifted to coordinating the response. What ensued involved ensuring available staffing and operating rooms, among other tasks.
"My director of public safety texted me and said, 'This is a real threat. It's been validated.' ... So my first thought was get to the hospital as fast as I can," Dr. Martin told the Detroit Free Press on Oct. 10, after a presentation at the Michigan State Medical Society Alliance's Fall Focus Health Symposium.
Three were killed and five injured in the shooting. The gunman reportedly died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to MLive.
In the aftermath of the shooting, Dr. Martin worked to gather information needed for the response.
He told the Free Press: "Who do we need to mobilize? Who do I need at the hospital? ... The initial call was eight individuals have been shot. At least five were en route to the hospital, but also the subject wasn't apprehended. So what was the scale? What was the number of patients that we would receive to the hospital? That was really some of the most important information for me to gather."
Dr. Martin also told the publication he began to bring in essential staff for the response and worked to ensure "somebody had reached out to the Red Cross. ... This is an event that we're going to likely use a lot of blood products to resuscitate patients.
"We immediately looked at ... our ER capacity," he added. "We moved a lot of people out. ... Our thought was, we needed to be able to handle at least a rush of 20 patients into the hospital. So we cleared, made room for 20.
"And then we started organizing teams. We assume in this kind of event that everyone's going to need to go to the operating room. From what we were hearing on the calls ... we could tell early on that these were individuals that had truly life-threatening injuries, so they would most all likely need to go to the room for … stabilization."
Dr. Martin went on to describe the personal connections he and staff members felt, the treatment the hospital provided to the shooting victims, and what the path to healing has been like for staff.
"All the emotions that you can have, I went through that," he said. "And I think a lot of us did — from being sad and angry. ... I'm proud of the team and how we did."
Michael Weiner, DO, chief medical officer of Michigan State University Health, has also spoken about the aftermath of the shooting. In March, he told Becker's about the phone call he made to Mark Rogers, DO, chief medical officer at Blacksburg-based Virginia Tech — a campus that experienced a mass shooting in 2007. He also indicated his plans to continue getting involved in the community.
"This is not a 'one-and-done' event. The ramifications of this will echo in the community for months if not years to come," Dr. Weiner told Becker's. "I think our challenge is to stay focused on the identification and treatment of those in need over the upcoming years post shooting in particular."
Read the full Free Press story here.