‘I Have 20 Gunshot Victims. I Need You’: Surgeon From Ventura Talks About Orlando Experience
Dr. Michael Cheatham raced to Orlando Regional Medical Center after his phone rang at 2:24 a.m. He didn't know what had happened. "All I knew is there was a need," he said. Also in the news, how the Food and Drug Administration came up with its blood donation regulations and the lessons communities can learn from the Orlando shooting.
Ventura County Star:
Bodies Covered In Plastic: Trauma Surgeon From Ventura Responds In Orlando Massacre
Dr. Michael Cheatham was asleep in his Orlando home, four minutes away from the Pulse nightclub. The phone rang. It was 2:24 a.m. Sunday. The 53-year-old trauma surgeon who grew up in Ventura didn't know that 22 minutes before his phone call, a man started firing a rifle into the crowd at Pulse. (Kisken, 6/18)
KPCC:
How Does The FDA Develop Bans Against Blood Donation?
In the wake of the Orlando shooting, gay men who wanted to help the victims were angry. They were angry at the decades-old FDA policy that prevented them from donating blood because of the fears over spreading HIV. But how does the FDA develop policy about who can donate blood, and how does the agency adapt over time? (Take Two, 6/17)
The New York Times:
How Can Communities Prepare For Mass Shootings? Orlando Offers Lessons
As doctors treated the horrific injuries of victims shot in the Pulse nightclub massacre here, a mistaken report of a gunman nearby forced officials to briefly lock down the emergency room; the medical staff shoved heavy X-ray machines against the doors, creating a makeshift barricade in a treatment bay. Emergency room physicians ran low on tubes needed to reinflate the lungs of patients shot in the chest. The doctors scrambled to make sense of gunshot wounds because paramedics had rushed victims in with no time to assess their conditions. The hospital’s emergency preparedness manager, asleep at home, received an urgent email but did not respond until awakened by text. (Stolberg and Grady, 6/19)