[dinobones]

Do paramedics/ambulances shard across hospitals?

It looks like there’s 3 hospitals within 15 minutes of the Las Vegas strip, I’m curious if there’s any attempt to allocate patients equally so that no single hospital becomes overwhelemed.

[bb611]

Yes to the extent they're able.

This article is a pretty good overview of the situation across Las Vegas that night: https://www.facs.org/for-medical-professionals/news-publicat...

In short, every hospital was overwhelmed, but Sunrise was the closest to the shooting so got the most overflow.

[dalben]

Can't say for Las Vegas, but we do here (in Belgium). There's a dedicated responsibility during mass casualties to distribute leaving ambulances over hospitals, also taking into account hospital specialties and facilities, such as a burn unit. The closest hospital is usually skipped because victims who self-transport will usually go there.

[rootusrootus]

This is common in the US, and I would assume in every other modern healthcare system.

[sfilmeyer]

Yes, there was lots of sharding across hospitals (although it wasn't executed perfectly). Wikipedia has some good info. About 60 people died and almost 900 were injured, over 400 of whom had gunshot or shrapnel wounds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Las_Vegas_shooting#Victim...

> Approximately 867 people were injured, at least 413 of them with gunshot wounds or shrapnel injuries. In the aftermath, many victims were transported to area hospitals, which included University Medical Center of Southern Nevada, Sunrise Hospital & Medical Center, and at least one of the six hospitals of Valley Health System. Sunrise Hospital treated the largest portion of the wounded: 199 patients, 150 of whom arrived within about 40 minutes.[80] University Medical Center treated 104 patients. Additionally, six victims sought medical treatment in Southern California; UC Irvine Medical Center treated four and Loma Linda University Medical Center treated two. Many victims of the shooting required blood transfusions, which totaled 499 components in the first 24 hours of treatment. This blood was rapidly replaced by available blood from local and national blood banks.

>University Medical Center, the Level I trauma center in Las Vegas, was difficult to access for the more than 50 percent of patients transported by private vehicles because Interstate 15, the most direct route from the shooting location, was closed to the public. Also, an erroneous emergency services announcement made one hour after the shooting reported UMC had reached capacity and was on diversion. This confusion persisted for several hours and led to most patients being transported to Sunrise, a Level II trauma center.

[ro_bit]

The graphic at the end of the article says the author's team only treated patients with gunshot wounds, and not tramples or sprains, so I imagine those lower priority injuries were diverted to other hospitals.

[biftek]

Not every hospital is a trauma center, according to the article this hospital only dealt with GSW victims