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Intense Day For Four Hospitals

April 17, 2007

By Kiran Krishnamurthy & Jeff White

BLACKSBURG, Va. — The first victims arrived at Montgomery Regional Hospital shortly after the first shooting at Virginia Tech yesterday morning.

As more victims arrived, the Blacksburg hospital called in additional nurses and pulled an extra surgeon from its sister HCA facility in Salem, Lewis-Gale Medical Center.

"Primarily, what we did was we used the staff that was on hand here at the hospital," said Scott Hill, chief executive officer at Montgomery Regional.

Hill said that although the hospital drills for mass-casualty events, "I don't know that you can ever properly prepare for this level of violence."

He described the atmosphere yesterday as intense. "But if you've ever been in a hospital emergency room that's a pretty intense environment anyway. What I would say is I'm very proud of the staff and the way they responded and the way they came together to make sure these individuals were cared for. "Things went as well as they could go," he said.

However, there were some problems from the weather and for relatives trying to find out the status of the injured.

Officials said high winds prevented medics from flying victims of yesterday's shootings to hospitals.

Four hospitals treated 25 injured people, at least 21 of them students and one faculty member.

"The tragedy in this, and it's a tragedy on so many levels, is that we couldn't get helicopters in the air. We had to use ground transportation," said Carol Chappell, spokeswoman at Lewis-Gale Medical Center in Salem, about 30 miles from Virginia Tech.

The National Weather Service reported winds of 33 mph in Blacksburg at 10 a.m., a short time before the second shooting, and light snow also fell during the morning. Gusts in the afternoon topped 50 mph.

Chappell also said relatives and friends faced some difficulty finding out about the injured because the hospitals each interpret the federal Health Information Protection Act concerning patient confidentiality differently.

"It's really an awkward situation because people are just trying to find out about loved ones and figure out which hospital to go to," she said.

Among those who stopped by Montgomery Regional Hospital in Blacksburg was Tech sophomore Kyle Facada, whose friend, Kristina Heeger, a sophomore from Northern Virginia, was shot in the lower back at Norris Hall. Facada said Heeger's parents were at the hospital and that he spoke to her mother. "Her mother said it's just been a morning of horror for them. Absolutely unimaginable," he said.

Officials at various hospitals confirmed:

The state's chief medical examiner and seven others from that office left yesterday to assist with the emergency. A spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Health said all the victims will be autopsied.

Hill, Montgomery Regional's chief executive, said officials set up a waiting room and made chaplains and grief counselors available. "We're trying to make sure we meet everybody's needs," he told reporters outside the hospital.

Contact staff writer Kiran Krishnamurthy at kkrishnamurthy@timesdispatch.com or (540) 371-4792.

Contact staff writer Jeff White at jwhite@timesdispatch.com or (804) 649-6838.

Times-Dispatch staff writers Peter Bacqué and Tammie Smith contributed to this report.