FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- In the chaos of Memorial Regional Hospital’s trauma unit, surgeon Niqui Kiffin has removed bullets from a man shot multiple times while sleeping. She has operated on a college student who shot himself playing with a gun while FaceTiming his girlfriend. And she has operated on a Golden Beach police officer who took a bullet in the arm while on duty.
“When we hear all the stuff about guns and gun violence and gun safety, we really know the trauma it causes,” Kiffin said.
While the top source of emergency room patients remains auto accidents, gunshot wounds are gaining on them.
Emergency department visits from firearm injuries show a dramatic jump in both case counts and rates both locally and statewide from 2017 to 2021, according to Florida Department of Health data. In Broward County, the case count has nearly doubled in that five-year time frame from 268 ER visits from firearm injuries in 2017 to 424 in 2021. Statewide, ER visits from firearm injuries has jumped from 2,808 in 2017 to 3,466 in 2021.
Some people never make it to the hospital, or never make it out. In the last five years, nearly 15,000 people in the state died by firearms.
Those who have survived gunshot wounds describe a long, rough journey to recovery — and a village of people who contribute to saving their lives.
As hospitals across the country celebrated National Trauma Survivors Day on May 18, many of those injured by firearms told their stories and thanked the emergency rescue teams, doctors, nurses and therapists who performed life-saving medical assistance, surgeries and rehabilitation. At Memorial Regional in Hollywood, a half-dozen gunshot wound survivors were celebrated. Among them was 4-year-old Clinton Grant Jr., who giggled and squirmed as his father brought him to a podium to receive a survivor’s medal.
When children get shot
In February, Grant, only 3 at the time, arrived at the Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in his father’s truck with a gun shot wound to his stomach. The little boy had gotten ahold of his grandfather’s gun pouch and accidently shot himself. Dr. Noor Kassira operated on him — twice. He had injuries to his bladder, bowel and iliac artery.
“He had such significant injuries, there was always a question of ‘is he going to survive this?'” Noor said. “It was difficult in the very beginning, but children are resilient. They are amazing. Each day things get better and he pulled through. He never complained. He was an amazing patient.”
“Heartbreaking” is how pediatric surgeons describe seeing a toddler like Grant come in covered in blood with a wound from a firearm.
“We know that people have guns in the house … 30% of the US population admits having guns in the house, so if we can save children from getting access to those guns, that’s really where we need to focus most of our attention,” said Dr. Tamar Levene, a pediatric trauma surgeon at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood.
Levene said even children who survive gunshot wounds often have long hospitalizations and require multiple surgeries. “It’s not an easy road by any stretch of the imagination.”
A gunshot survivor speaks out
At St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach last week, Charles Banks thanked both God and the medical team that saved his life, noting that he still has physical and emotional scars from being shot five times.
Banks, 34, said he was unarmed in February when he was jumped by a group of men who shot him. The bullets lodged in each of his arms, his thigh, and his abdomen. “I instantly felt it,” he recalls. “The right side of my body just locked up. I was in excruciating pain. On a scale of one to 10, it was way beyond a 10.”
Emergency responders transported Banks to St. Mary’s Medical Center, which has a Level 1 trauma center. Trauma surgeons immediately operated to take out the bullets. Banks awoke with his arms and leg bandaged but his stomach partially open. “I had to heal from the inside out,” he said. “I kept fighting, day by day by day.”
Weeks after his first round of surgeries, Banks needed another operation when one of the wounds didn’t heal well.
“There are people who just want to lay there,” Banks said, describing how he fought hard to recover. “I went to physical therapy every day. At first I just couldn’t stand for long or walk much. I got tired, short of breath, dizzy, but I kept fighting. The physical therapist and doctors were surprised and shocked and excited for me.”
Banks says he still struggles with pain, but the biggest problem is his mental trauma.
“People need to know, this is serious and very traumatizing for someone to have to live through. The people who makes it through are very blessed .. a lot of people don’t,” Banks said. “It’s tough mentally and physically. Now I am battling depression.”
The doctors’ perspective
Inside South Florida’s emergency rooms, those on the front line never get numb to the trauma.
Dr. Robert Borrego, trauma medical director at St. Mary’s Medical Center, was on the team that saved Banks’ life.
With trauma, Borrego explained, the first hour after a patient arrives is critical. With gunshot victims, most lose large amounts of blood and need immediate infusions. When someone has multiple gunshot wounds, there can be massive bleeding.
“The crucial part is having the blood,” the doctor said. “Many lives are saved because of that.”
“We have a protocol to assess what is life threatening first,” Borrego said. “Gunshot wounds are associated with devastating injuries that need to be addressed quickly.”
Borrego said trauma doctors experience highs and lows, and tend to become more emotional when the patient is a child. He has seen children, even babies, arrive with unintentional wounds from being bystanders during shootings, The one-hour time frame to treat those injuries is even more critical than with adults, he said.
The recovery, whether adult or child, can take months. “We get involved with the families and patients, and get very attached to them,” Borrego said.
Dr. Dileep Ravi, assistant medical director of the emergency room at Delray Medical Center, said while his hospital tends to get mostly seniors with injuries from falls, gunshot wound patients tend to be the most critical. They usually arrive by ambulance and require an entire team to perform life-saving medical care, sometimes as many as a dozen hospital workers.
Some patients need multiple surgeries.
As a father, Ravi said it can be emotional seeing a child arrive with a trauma.
“I definitely have seen a child with a gunshot wound, and it makes you reflect how you would feel if it was your own child,” he said. “It can be so emotional during those times.”
On Tuesday, as Memorial Regional Hospital surgeon Kiffen celebrated trauma survivors, she said the hardest part of her job is telling a parent their child will not have a normal life. She looked at 4-year-old Grant and said seeing him running around and smiling is meaningful.
“When we hear things about having guns now without a license and all the violence in schools and classrooms, it’s heartbreaking because you see that little boy,” she said. “He’s already been shot and recovered in the span of his short life. It’s just heartbreaking.”
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