Update on Patients at Mercy Medical Center
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Good morning, I'm Carol Costello. I'm going bring you right out to Roseburg, Oregon. This is at Mercy Hospital. This is an update on the victims from that terrible shooting on an Oregon campus. Let's listen.</s>DR. JASON GRAY, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, MERCY MEDICAL CENTER: The two, three that remain are expected to recover well and at this point remain in stable or stable critical condition.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: How do you train for a mass casualty incident like this?</s>GRAY: You know, we have community wide training events for this exact situation as part of the Oregon trauma system. We're a level three trauma system. And we integrate with the level two and the level one trauma hospitals throughout the state.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Can you give us any indication on who these victims are? Young? Old? Male, female?</s>GRAY: You know, they are mixed, male and female at this point. Of varying ages.</s>KELLY MORGAN, CEO, MERCY MEDICAL CENTER: We just want to honor the privacy for the patients. That's why we're not going to provide their names today.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What was the age span?</s>GRAY: You know, the age span we'd say was on the younger side.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Doctor, if you could say again, there were 10 patients admitted here, and just explain that again what you just went over.</s>GRAY: Sure. We received 10 patients from the UCC. Of those three were transferred to a higher level of care for services which we don't have available. Two of them were treated and released from the emergency room. Four of them required operating room procedures. One patient was deceased in the emergency room. Of the four that underwent surgical intervention, one was discharged yesterday. One will likely be discharged today. And the remaining two, one is in critical condition and one is in stable condition at this point.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Can you say what type of injuries?</s>GRAY: All of the injuries were gunshot wounds, to the abdomen, thorax, head, extremities at this point.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Can you explain -- there's a disparity between the sheriff's office saying there were seven people wounded and yours saying that there are 10 people admitted here.</s>GRAY: I cannot explain that. I know we received 10 patients in total. And that's the information that I can vouch for.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Talk about the challenges dealing when -- when you have so many coming all at once. How do you respond?</s>GRAY: You know, from a medical standpoint we're trained for this. Obviously this is an overwhelming situation but we practice it. The outpouring of the community, the outpouring of our staff coming in on their days off. Retired physicians coming in, nurses coming in, staff coming in. One of the challenges obviously is coordinating support for the friends, the family of the victims and coordinating information. Been very difficult.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Doctor Gray, we've heard time and again that everyone knows somebody who's been impacted by the shooting. Has this personally impacted you as well?</s>GRAY: I have staff members who have been impacted and I know at this point we do not know all the names of the victims.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: But for your personally, to -- I mean, this is your town. To see this happen here, and just trying to -- how do you cope with helping with -- helping these people and dealing with the emotion at the same time.</s>GRAY: You know that's been one of our biggest challenges is supporting not only our -- the patients, the families but our own caregivers as Kelly mentioned. Yesterday was a challenging day. The days and the weeks to come will be the most challenging and how do we continue to support our staff, the family, the victims here.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You're saying you don't know all the victims' names even as you guys are taking care of them.</s>GRAY: We do not know all the victims names that are out there at the college.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Can you update or do you know the conditions of the victims up at Springville at all? Do you have contact with them?</s>GRAY: I have not been in contact with them this morning.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: OK. . But you said they were the more severe, more life threatening injuries?</s>GRAY: The patients were transferred to Peace Health that required services which we don't have available. Typically neurosurgery.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The one person that's deceased. Is it in addition to the 10 that were announced yesterday? Or --</s>GRAY: You know, I cannot vouch for those numbers.</s>KELLY: Yes. We don't know if that's one of the 10 or not. We don't know that.</s>GRAY: But again all four here that were admitted here expected to survive and do well.</s>KELLY: Yes.</s>GRAY: One is already out, the other one leaving today.</s>KELLY: Correct.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: And your background, Doctor, have you seen something of this nature before?</s>GRAY: In a small community like this, this is the first time in a small community. At larger facilities, and as Kelly mentioned it really shows how the community came together. Look at our first responders, the law enforcement officers, the staff here, our nurses. The community outpouring. We received support from across the country. It's quite amazing. Pizzas delivered from hospitals in Louisiana and Georgia. Coffee from the local coffee vices. Really shows the best in the community unfortunately.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Sorry, sir. Can your emotions when they showed up and you</s>GRAY: You know, the initial emotions are disbelief. It can't be happening. And then it is focused on treating the patients. And then us and the staff go through the rest of the range of emotions from disbelief, from anger, from sadness to resolution. And you know it is still -- it is less than 24 hours. It is still very raw for a lot of people. And I think you will find most -- many people are quite numb.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: OK. What is next for you and the staff here? You have two more people that you're tending to, and then what?</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Is it two or three more people?</s>GRAY: There are currently three here.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: OK.</s>GRAY: One will likely be discharged today. So there were two. So we will continue to focus as a hospital on the well-being and medical care of them and then emotional support of family, the victims and especially our staff here.</s>MORGAN: And we have our pastoral clergy ready to go to have some time with our employees today as well as early next week so they can walk through the emotional trauma also.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The people who have been transferred, can you describe the difference of their injuries?</s>GRAY: The three that were transferred were either services that we don't provide here or that in our state trauma system met the criteria to be transferred to a level one or a level two trauma center.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: That was in Springfield that they were transferred from?</s>GRAY: Correct.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: PeaceHealth, PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center. They sent out a news release to us last night saying two are listed as critical and one in serious condition. Have you heard that as well?</s>GRAY: That would fit with the description at the time of transfer.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Do either of you know anyone personally at this school or have any family members of your own at the school?</s>MORGAN: Well, I think all of us have, you know, different family members and friends that either work out there or that are students. Obviously we don't know who the victims are at this time but I will assure you every single person here at the hospital and in our community will be impacted by somebody out of</s>UCC. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: When can we expect another update on victims or at least the conditions of the victims you have here?</s>MORGAN: Once we know an update on the three people that are still here I'm sure we'll send out a press release on that. For the victims out of the college, that is something you will need to work with the sheriff's office on.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: We understand that the sheriff's office</s>GRAY: We do not believe the shooter was treated here.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: OK. Thank you.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What can the community do to help you?</s>MORGAN: You know, I think this is a time of trying to pray as much as we can and to be peaceful and to be supportive of each other. There are things that the community can do, we are going to have a blood drive later today at our community center it. That will be at noon. So if people want to participate with that, that will be really helpful. But I also think just spending time with friends and family to support them as we walk through this. We know it is going to be a long process of grieving, as well as support. So that's what's we're going to need from everybody here.</s>MORGAN: I'm sorry?</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: People who were in shock, not necessarily the injured. People that relatives who like collapse or had to, you know, fell back.</s>MORGAN: None of those were admitted. But obviously a lot of emotional and a lot of pastoral support for those families.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: So you're --</s>MORGAN: Our mental health professionals are available for people here also. You know, whether you are employees or whether it's other people in the community. So I think the mental health providers are going to be available. So that's what we want to coordinate also with the community.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You're saying definitively the shooter was not treated here. Correct? I want to make sure I understand.</s>GRAY: To the best of our knowledge the shooter was not treated here.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thank you.</s>MORGAN: You bet.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thank you.</s>COSTELLO: All right. We're going step away from this news conference at the Mercy Medical Center but you heard 10 patients were admitted after that shooting on the Umpqua campus. All but three have been released from that hospital. Two are in stable condition and one is expected to go home a little later today. So that is a bit of good news. Sanjay Gupta, Dr. Sanjay Gupta is standing by at Mercy Medical Center in Roseburg to tell us more. Hi, Sanjay.</s>DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Carol. You know, this hospital is about five miles away from the scene. And this was the closest hospital. I talked to the two folks you're seeing there doing the press conference just for a little while ago. They told me they got about a 10 to 15 minute notice prior to all of these patients showing up. And so they felt that they were -- they had some notice and they were prepared. But this is a level three trauma center. It is not really equipped to be able to take care of all of these patients with some of these types of injuries. I can also tell you that the three patients that were transferred out were patients that in fact had gunshot wounds to the head. They did not have neurosurgical care here. That's why they were transferred to another hospital and the status of those patients were serious to critical. And so we're going to be getting some update. But as you heard again, Carol, I mean, a little bit of good, I guess, here. All the patients that are still in the hospital seem to be doing well. One is expected to be discharged today. So I'll just tell you as well. I know, you know, this is a small town. People know each other here. They sort of alluded to this. But everyone, there were staff members here at the hospital that had a direct relationship in some way with some of the victims. So it's been a very -- very emotional on so many different levels here, Carol.</s>COSTELLO: I know. And just to go over, I'm just going over my notes from this news conference. He said most of the patients admitted to the hospital were in their 20s, right, male and female. And most of them I heard were either shot in the head or the abdomen, correct?</s>GUPTA: Yes. So the head, the abdomen, the chest and the limbs, arms and legs as well. The three patients that were transferred to the other hospital were all women. And these three women that were shot in the head, they're between the ages of 18 and 34. They wouldn't give us the exact age. They sort of gave us that window of age. But you get an idea, I think as you're alluding to, Carol, a picture, of who these people were.</s>COSTELLO: All right, Sanjay Gupta. We're going to take a break and we'll take you back to the scene of the crime after.