Disaster #2

I worked the ER during the aftermath of Hurricane Elvis in Memphis. 

Last night I got put on Disaster Standby for the ICU for Disaster #2 of my nursing carrer. I’m one of the closer nurses to the hospital. Along with the storms, there was a gas line explosion in Hartsville last night. Union University in Jackson had a lot of it’s campus destroyed. Tornado hit a dorm. 12 were trapped and had to be dug out. 9 of those had be hospitalized, but no one was life threatening. 

So 2 disasters in my 4 years of nursing. Granted I never got called in for this one. We got lots of wind. A few downed trees. A couple stores had signs knocked down. Overall not too bad. Probably the fact our census was high (by the time I left about 21 hours before the disaster we were totally out of ICU beds) and with the storms nobody was able to fly so we being the Regional Hospital would have to function as the area’s Trauma Center if it became necessary because on a clear day it takes an ambulance over an hour to go by ground to either of the closer Level 1 Trauma Centers. 

On another note, one thing I’ll miss about living in a small town is the customer service. I was asking the release date of Strangers in Death by J.D. Robb. They searched the whole store and then found it in the back still on the truck that had just arrived. So the clerk goes out onto the truck and gets it and sells it to me. I honestly think the sell-on date is like Feb 19th, but hey I’m not going to argue. 

Whew! Finally got our internet back up after the storms. Was. Not. Fun.