Overwhelmed Chicago Hospital Has to Turn Away Gun Victims

Mount Sinai had so many trauma patients it was forced to temporarily turn away new ones
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 5, 2019 9:15 AM CDT
After Slew of Shootings, Chicago Hospital Goes 'On Bypass'
Stock photo.   (Getty Images/MJFelt)

In a weekend marred by mass shootings in Texas and Ohio, Chicago registered its own weekend of gun-violence chaos, with more than four dozen people gunned down, at least seven fatally, in various shootings around the city, WLS reports. The carnage was so bad in the Windy City, in fact, that one hospital had to go "on bypass," meaning that for a few hours Sunday morning, it had to turn away incoming patients arriving by ambulance because it was already dealing with too many trauma patients. A rep for Mount Sinai Hospital tells CNN that during its most hectic moments early Sunday, it had to send incoming ambulances to one of the other five trauma centers in the area.

The hospital started accepting patients again by 6:30am, just a few hours after the "on bypass" mandate was issued, but the plethora of shooting victims over the weekend, both in Chicago and elsewhere, didn't escape the notice of local law enforcement. Chicago PD rep Anthony Guglielmi noted "a tragic 24 hrs for our country" in a tweet cited by HuffPost, while police Chief Eddie Johnson lamented the state of things in a Sunday presser. "You have to stop yourself and ask what will it take before we get a handle on what's going on," he said. "Not only in Chicago, but across the country." (More gun violence stories.)

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