美国国家公共电台 NPR In A Houston Emergency Room, It Was A Week Like No Other

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

St. Joseph Medical Center is the only hospital in the heart of Houston's downtown. It is just down the street from the convention center where thousands of evacuees¹ have been staying since Hurricane Harvey hit. From member station KERA, Rachel Osier Lindley reports that some doctors and nurses were on the clock for almost the entire week.

RACHEL OSIER LINDLEY, BYLINE²: When you're working in an ER during a major natural disaster, nothing is routine.

TRENT TANKERSLEY: 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 labor³. She was brought to the hospital in the dump bed of a dump truck, soaking wet.

OSIER LINDLEY: Trent Tankersley is the director of emergency services at St. Joseph Medical Center.

TANKERSLEY: As we were getting her over to the women's building to get taken care of, we had a trauma⁴ come in. Shortly after that, we had a young man - came in that was having a stroke.

OSIER LINDLEY: And on and on. Tankersley showed up to work on the Saturday the rain started and hasn't had what you'd consider a break since.

TANKERSLEY: I 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.

KRISTEN BENJAMIN: Well, I think we're all working on adrenaline right now.

OSIER LINDLEY: Kristen Benjamin, an associate chief nursing officer, has been right beside him.

BENJAMIN: Some people are doing 15, 16-hour shifts. We let them go off and sleep. They come back in.

OSIER LINDLEY: They saw more than 600 patients in the first five days alone. At times, they saw more people in a few hours than they usually would in a whole day. Many staffers were stuck at the hospital with no clear path to their homes. As floodwaters recede⁵, their co-workers can finally come back.

BENJAMIN: And so we're going to start transitioning staff out to get home so that they can check on their homes. Because some of them don't even know what's happening at their house right now because they haven't been home since Friday. So they don't even really have an idea if their house has been flooded or not.

OSIER LINDLEY: Among those staffing the ER today are doctors from other departments pitching in and even med students like Diana Johnson.

DIANA JOHNSON: Me and my classmates - someone created a Google spreadsheet. And we all signed up, and now we're here.

OSIER LINDLEY: She's in her third year at Houston's McGovern Medical School. She's assisting Dr. Winston Watkins, an internist. It's his first day in the emergency room.

WINSTON WATKINS: And actually, one of the first patients that came in happened to be one of my own patients from my practice. And he came in with his - foot was hurting. So Diana here went in, evaluated him. It turns out, he has gangrene of his right fourth toe. And so we're going to admit him to the hospital. Are you doing OK?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: I'm right.

WATKINS: You're OK?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: I'm here.

WATKINS: Nurse Aaron Pedron says he's never seen such a wide range of emotions in the ER.

AARON PEDRON: A lot of laughter, crying, yelling, tears. You know, people that you work with that you think that wouldn't crack, you know, just put their head in their hands and take a second to cry to themselves or not to themselves and wipe away the tears and get back to work.

OSIER LINDLEY: He's been working here for most of the last week.

PEDRON: I went home on Saturday to rescue my family before the floods got too high for me to get in or out. And then I came back Sunday. And I have been working and sleeping here ever since.

OSIER LINDLEY: His house flooded. Several others working in the ER saw their homes flooded, too. He says it's all been a transformational experience.

PEDRON: I think times of crisis and times of emergency and times of stress really have a way to bring people together and create a lot of camaraderie⁶ and really can push people to excel at what they do.

OSIER LINDLEY: Once reinforcements come in, he can rotate off his shift and find out just how much his family lost. For NPR News, I'm Rachel Osier Lindley in Houston.

1 evacuees   

n.被疏散者( evacuee的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Moreover, for multi-exits, evacuees select a exit based on game theory. 在有多个出口时，疏散人员根据对策论选择出口。 来自互联网
• Evacuees wade through flooded area following heavy monsoon rains in Peshawar on Saturday, July 31, 2010. 撤离灾区涉水通过后在白沙瓦沉重的季风降雨在周六，2010年7月31日。 来自互联网

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

4 trauma   

n.外伤，精神创伤

参考例句：

• Counselling is helping him work through this trauma.心理辅导正帮助他面对痛苦。
• The phobia may have its root in a childhood trauma.恐惧症可能源于童年时期的创伤。

5 recede   

vi.退(去)，渐渐远去；向后倾斜，缩进

参考例句：

• The colleges would recede in importance.大学的重要性会降低。
• He saw that the dirty water had begun to recede.他发现那污浊的水开始往下退了。

6 camaraderie   

n.同志之爱，友情

参考例句：

• The camaraderie among fellow employees made the tedious work just bearable.同事之间的情谊使枯燥乏味的工作变得还能忍受。
• Some bosses are formal and have occasional interactions,while others prefer continual camaraderie.有些老板很刻板，偶尔才和下属互动一下；有些则喜欢和下属打成一片。