{"id":12779,"date":"2017-09-02T11:11:21","date_gmt":"2017-09-02T11:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/2017\/09\/02\/in-a-houston-emergency-room-it-was-a-week-like-no-other\/"},"modified":"2017-09-02T11:11:21","modified_gmt":"2017-09-02T11:11:21","slug":"in-a-houston-emergency-room-it-was-a-week-like-no-other","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/in-a-houston-emergency-room-it-was-a-week-like-no-other\/","title":{"rendered":"In A Houston Emergency Room, It Was A Week Like No Other"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rachel Osier Lindley<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

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\n Dr. Winston Watkins, an internist at St. Joseph Medical Center in Houston, volunteered to do a shift in the ER to give his colleagues a break.<\/p>\n

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Rachel Osier Lindley\/KERA<\/p>\n

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St. Joseph Medical Center is downtown Houston’s only hospital, located just down the street from the convention center where thousands of evacuees have been staying since Harvey hit.<\/p>\n

As of Friday, some doctors and nurses have been on the clock for almost a full week.<\/p>\n

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\n Trent Tankersley, director of emergency services at St. Joseph Medical Center in downtown Houston, had a very long work week, as did many of his colleagues.<\/p>\n

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When you’re working in an ER during a major natural disaster, nothing is routine. Trent Tankersley, director of emergency services at St. Joseph Medical Center, describes one tense situation after another in the hospital this week.<\/p>\n

“We had a lady who the only vehicle heavy enough and strong enough to get to her through the floodwaters was a dump truck. She was pregnant. She was in labor. She was brought to the hospital in the dump bed of a dump truck, soaking wet.<\/p>\n

“As we were getting her over to the women’s building to get taken care of, we had a trauma come in. Shortly after that, we had a young man [who] came in that was having a stroke.”<\/p>\n

Tankersley showed up to work Saturday, and hasn’t had what you’d consider “a break” since.<\/p>\n

“Finally got to go home last night for a couple hours and do some laundry and then came right back. So it’s been an interesting five or six days.”<\/p>\n

Some staff haven’t been home since before Harvey struck<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kristen Benjamin, an associate chief nursing officer, has been right beside Tankersley.<\/p>\n

“I think we’re all working on adrenaline right now. We’re working shift by shift. Some people are doing 15-, 16-hour shifts. We let them go off and sleep. They come back in.”<\/p>\n

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\n Kristen Benjamin, associate chief nursing officer at St. Joseph Medical Center, says many employees hadn’t been home to see if their houses were flooded.<\/p>\n

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Rachel Osier Lindley\/KERA<\/p>\n

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They’ve seen more than 600 patients in the first five days. At times, they saw more patients in a few hours than they usually would in a whole day.<\/p>\n