When you get shot, every second counts.
Chicago Fire Department paramedic field chief Patrick Fitzmaurice knows about these things. The 40-year department veteran often arrives first at shooting scenes where it’s his job to stabilize the wounded and get victims to a hospital quickly.
I called Fitzmaurice, a guy who isn’t afraid speak his mind, after news broke that University of Chicago Medicine and Sinai Health System plan to team up to open an adult trauma center on the South Side that community activists have been demanded in protest after protest for years.
The $40 million plan calls for turning the Holy Cross Hospital emergency room into a Level 1 trauma center, which will become the only place on the violence-plagued South Side equipped to treat critically wounded adults.
Since the early 90s, South Side shooting victims have been rushed to Mt. Sinai in North Lawndale, Northwestern Memorial in Streeterville, Stroger Hospital in Little Italy and Christ Hospital in suburban Oak Lawn, which often includes the risk that an ambulance could get stopped at a pair of train crossings on the way.
"What’s your take?" I asked the veteran paramedic.
“It absolutely can’t hurt,” Fitzmaurice said. “But it would be better if the trauma center was southeast. Holy Cross is at [68th and California]. That doesn’t do anything for someone shot at 110th and State or 99th and Escanaba who get transported to Northwestern Memorial. Most of the time you go straight down King Drive or Stony until you can get to the Drive and get to Northwestern. Do the math, that’s a long-ass ride when you’re bleeding out and time is everything.”
Putting a Level 1 trauma center at the University of Chicago Hospital would be a much better idea, Fitzmaurice said.
Still, the paramedic field chief says the Holy Cross location will help, especially when a shooting scene leaves more than one victim wounded, which isn’t uncommon.
“On a Friday night when you have three gunshot victims in that area, instead of saying, 'I’m sending two to county and one to Sinai,' you can send one to county, one to Sinai and one to Holy Cross,” he said. “It has to help in those instances.”
Some of the young black activists who organized protests aimed at putting a new trauma center at U of C in Hyde Park — including friends of the late Kevin Ambrose, the 19-year-old college student who was shot under the 47th Street Green Line station in 2013 and died on the long ride to Stroger Hospital — still aren't happy with the trauma center’s address.
"It is a victory because of the work that young black people and their allies have been doing," said Veronica Morris-Moore, a spokeswoman for the group and an organizer with Fearless Leading by the Youth. "But it's still not enough, in terms of the U. of C. showing that black lives actually do matter to their institution."
Kevin’s mother, Ebony Ambrose, agrees.
For her, it’s another example of powerful people disregarding the needs of people who live in certain parts of town.
“I’m happy that the work of the young people who have been pushing so hard to get a trauma center on the South Side has made something happen, but clearly this isn’t what they wanted. It’s awesome news for people who live near Holy Cross Hospital, but not so awesome for the people who don’t,” she said.
Kevin Ambrose.
“The people who have been fighting for a trauma center at U. of C. … deserved to be spoken to directly and consulted with when the decision makers were coming up with these plans. They shouldn’t be told to shut up and be happy with whatever is given to them — especially when what’s being given isn’t what they asked for, might not be what they need, and probably won’t fix the issues at hand in the first place.
"South and West siders are sick of not having a seat at the table when serious issues concerning their community are being discussed, and rightfully so," Ambrose said.
Still, there’s no arguing that the new trauma center, as Fitzmaurice put it, “absolutely can’t hurt.”
Frankly, it’s better than having nothing; a deadly reality South Side folks have suffered through for far too long.
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