CNN news 2013-04-19 加文本

cnn news 2013-04-19

Good evening everyone, ten o'clock here in Boston. Just a few blocks fromBoston Marathon finish line where two small bombs caused such terrible,terrible carnage today, just hours into massive investigation, just moment webelieve from news conference at Massachusetts General Hospital, where so manyof the wounded were taken. We will bring you that news conference live. Threepeople now confirm died including an eight-year old boy. At least another 141people wounded. Many of them gravely wounded. Their bodies torn apart by ballbearings or something similar packed into those explosive devices. There are alot of late developments tell you about over the course of this hour. We havegot a team of correspondence and experts covering this. I want to begin though.Let's begin by showing you just as it happened what words simply cannot fully describe.It’s difficult to watch, it is very raw, perhaps you have seen it already andmay want to turn away and I would understand if you would. But raw is exactlywhat this story is right now. Take a look.

A press conference is now just starting at Massachusetts General. Let'slisten in.

What kind of injuries?

There's a variety of injuries. Probably, the most common serious injuriesare combined lower extremity injuries, combined meaning bone injuries, softtissue injuries and vascular injuries to the lower extremities.

Are you seeing something like the shrapnel type injuries?

Yes.

Can you describe what ...

So we're seeing a lot of shrapnel type, a lot of shrapnel injuries. Manyof those involve again predominantly the lower extremities. But shrapnelinjuries can affect the entire body.

Doctor, please describe the scene when people were coming in? Can youdescribe that?

Well, the first patient you came in was probably the most severe. We hadthree of the most critically ill patients come in about 15 minutes. You know,at that point, we didn't know if that was, that did turn out to be the tip ofthe iceberg, if that was going to be the tip of a huge iceberg or not. And so Ithink, actually everybody we're prepared for that type of situation. So thehospital activated its incident command system. And within about five to 10minutes, we had everything pretty much up and running.

What are the ages of the victims?

I don't have that information precisely.

Did you perform any amputations?

Yes, we have performed several amputations.

How many?

I can't tell you the total.

That was the trauma surgeon, Peter Fagenholz, briefing reporters at MassGeneral, describing the horrific injuries he has seen today, especially theshrapnel wounds, eight critical patients at his hospital alone.

Our chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, himself a neurosurgeon,joins me now.

Sanjay, what you're hearing in terms of the types of injuries thesehospitals are seeing, what stands out to you?

Well, you know everyone is talking about these lower limb injuries andthis idea that there was a significant explosive force, but that is stayedclose to the ground. I think that keeps getting proven as we hear more and moredescriptions. Doctor Fagenholz, you just heard from, said he performed sixoperations himself. He said there were several amputations performed at hishospital, which is tough to think about in the context of this running event.He described the injuries to the legs as being bony, but also involving a lotof the soft tissue and vascular, meaning the blood vessels also being affected.Those are different types of injuries. The vascular injuries, the blood vesselinjuries, tend to be the most critical, because someone could be losing blood,they could be losing blood flow to the limb. So those have to be addressed veryquickly. And I'm sure that triage is ongoing. You heard that he's going back,back inside possibly to perform more operations, Anderson.