ANSWERED THE CALL

On March 2, a bus carrying the Bluffton University baseball team plunged off a Northside Drive overpass and crashed onto I-75, about 30 feet below. The accident killed seven people and injured many more. As horrific as the day was for the Ohio university's players, coaches and their families, another team — Atlanta's emergency services workers — was there to support them.

Tony Trimble, an emergency medical technician and a nurse at Grady Memorial Hospital, was pouring the morning's first cup of coffee when the dispatch call came in.

Trimble and Brian Shepler, EMT-P, were the first on the scene. Shepler helped the people who had been thrown from the north side of the bus, while Trimble entered the vehicle to count the casualties. Trimble, EMT-P, RN, quickly determined that the driver, Jerome Niemeyer, and his wife, Jean, had died. He put blankets on two survivors who were pinned down, assuring them that the fire department was coming to get them out.

As Atlanta firefighters responded to the scene (about 55 toal would come), Trimble called the communications center to tell officials from Grady and other nearby hospitals how many casualties to expect. He heard that a Grady doctor was already on the way.

"Once field supervisors arrived, I gathered up the walking wounded and began conducting assessments," Trimble said. "Since they were all 19- or 20-year-old young men, they were insisting they weren't hurt."

When emergencies happen, the training and experience of first responders kick in, Trimble said.

"Accidents happen all over Atlanta every day, and Grady works hand-in-glove with all the EMS agencies," Trimble said. "It's a very tight-knit operation. That day, everyone functioned as a team.

"Nobody sees what goes on in the background. There are about 60 to 70 EMS employees working, dispatching the equipment and everything we needed to the site, while taking about 40 other 911 calls at the same time. That's just the way we work around here."

About eight minutes after Trimble arrived at the scene, the first ambulances transporting people with critical injuries pulled away. Critically injured players and coaches were sent to Atlanta's two Level 1 trauma centers — Grady Hospital and Atlanta Medical Center — as well as to Piedmont Hospital. Trimble knew that Grady would get most of the 29 passengers who were still alive, because the hospital had the surgical and emergency staff to handle them.

When someone was needed to identify the dead, team captain Ryan Baightel stepped forward, saying, " 'It's my team, my responsibility,' " Trimble said. "We made sure that he was stable enough to do it, and [we] took him to the bodies."

Baightel identified them, went back to tell his teammates who was dead, and then led them in a prayer.

"In my 26 years as a paramedic, I have never seen anything like the dignity he showed," Trimble said.

Trimble was not only the first responder on the scene but also the last one to leave. He rode a MARTA bus with the team to the hospital about an hour after arriving.

"[The players] were taking care of each other, but it was eerily quiet, and, for once, we had I-75 to ourselves," he remembered.

Trimble worked nine other calls that day, but his involvement with the crash patients didn't end that day. A surgical critical-care nurse at Grady, he helped care for two of them and met players and their families later that week.

At the hospital

In the Grady emergency department, clinical managers Diaz Clark and Lisa DeLancy got the 911 alert on their pagers and knew they'd be treating plenty of patients.

"It's not unusual for us to have a lot of trauma patients at once, but the media involvement and nature of the accident made it different," said DeLancy, RN, BSN. "We were prepared. With 28 to 30 nurses on shift, we had the staff to handle it."

"I was amazed by the number of [off-duty] staff that called, volunteering to come in, but we told them we had it covered," said Clark, RN, BSN.

Although the unit received 19 patients, the staff handled the situation with poise, while caring for about 100 other patients already in the clinic.

"This group wasn't any more challenging than the traumas we see every day, but we wanted to do everything we could for them. We knew that they had been through a terrible tragedy and were in an unknown state, far away from known faces," said Candice Moo Yin, RN, a staff nurse assigned to the group.

The staff decided to keep together the patients who hadn't been rushed to surgery or to the intensive care unit. Emergency department staff created a treatment area in the X-ray department's waiting room and even made a small eating area for the team.

"We wanted them to be in a quiet, controlled atmosphere that would make the whole process easier. Holistically, we thought it best for their physical and emotional needs," DeLancy said.

"For their psychological peace of mind, they could see their buddies as we took care of them, and the staff could answer all their questions at once," Clark said.

"Being able to see and support each other helped them stay calmer, but they worried about the ones they couldn't see, who had gone to other hospitals," Moo Yin said.

One player was especially distressed about the critical condition of his brother, who was being treated at another hospital. Nurses lent cellphones so that patients could call home or one another.

Some players were unaware of which teammates had died. Nurses made sure that players had support around them when they learned bad news about their friends.

The staff took in team members who were discharged from other hospitals. After about eight hours, they moved everyone to the eighth floor, which had a waiting area where people could gather as family members arrived.

Personal touch

Some staff members bonded with injured players and their teammates.

"The young men were so modest and well-mannered and grateful to be alive," Moo Yin said. "Some told us that they felt like we were family, because of how we cared for them."

She later visited one of the patients she had cared for in the intensive care unit. "He didn't remember me but thanked me so much for my help," Moo Yin said.

The staff witnessed an outpouring of support from the people of metro Atlanta, who brought food and clothing, and provided families with transportation and housing.

"It absolutely confirmed my belief in people," said Clark, who has since visited team members in Bluffton.

Moo Yin felt proud when a friend at church told her, "You guys did good."

DeLancy also was pleased with how the emergency department at Grady handled the crisis.

"I was very proud of our staff. It made you feel good to be a nurse to see the way everyone cared," she said.

Although the accident garnered national media attention, the staff performed like it always does, Clark said.

"We only did what we do every day. We would do the exact same thing for any group of patients, but it was a nice job of pulling together," she said. "When you think of all the emergency services, transport, nurses, doctors, chaplains and staff involved, I guess the word you automatically think of is 'teamwork.' "