BALTIMORE — Paramedics with University of Maryland Express Care provide care for more than 350 patients each month, but Jeremy Mayer hadn’t even started his shift when a man approached him outside the Shock Trauma Center last week seeking help.
“He turned around,” recalled Mayer, “He had his shirt up. He was covered in blood, and that’s when the paramedic side kicked in, and I was like, ‘Okay, this guy’s seriously injured. ’I told him to stay where he was.”
Incorporating the help of a fellow paramedic and an EMT, Mayer and his team began assessing the victim’s injuries right on the sidewalk.
Seeking life-saving care in the moment
“We were able to expose his chest; saw two penetrating injuries to his chest,” explained Mayer.
Faced with a victim who had suffered two gunshot wounds to the chest, the team placed the man on a gurney and rushed him into the hospital, where he had life-saving surgery.
“If he had been shot several blocks away and had waited for someone to activate the emergency system through 911, I can’t imagine that he would be alive,” said Critical Care Surgeon Dr. Rishi Kundi.
Police later determined the man had been shot in the 2400 block of Westport Street and had driven himself nearly three miles for help.
Obviously, he chose the right place.
“This is an unusual example of the Maryland trauma system in action,” said Shock Trauma Physician in Chief Dr. Thomas Scalia, “Usually, they come in by ambulance, but not always and people get dropped off here actually fairly frequently, and they don’t know. They see it says ‘Emergency,’ so that’s where they come and we’re really very, very grateful for everybody going out of their usual job description to just do what they do.”
Mayer served as a paramedic for almost a decade, and his experience in assessing the victim’s condition in this case certainly saved critical seconds.
Not bad for a man trained in triage, treatment, and transport, although the latter usually involves driving the patient in his ambulance for additional care.
“This one very much came right to us,” said Mayer, “Normally, we have to drive all over the state to different hospitals, but you know, we still had quite a walk to get around to the ambulance bay, but it was worth it.”
