Find more local reactions and reflections on the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, here.

It was a declaration, a plea, a cri de coeur delivered hours after last week’s massacre in Uvalde, Texas.

“We can’t get numb to this,” said Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr.

That’s not a risk for Dr. Omar Ferrari, who deals directly with the consequences of gun violence.

He is medical director of the emergency department at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital. On Thursday, Ferrari recounted the steps he and his team took earlier in the week to save the life of a man who had been shot multiple times. It was a case study in the damage several bullets can do.

Like most gunshot victims in the area, this one was transported to Memorial, the only Level II trauma center in all of Marin, Mendocino, Napa and Sonoma counties. Upon arrival, the man was in agony and “in extremis,” said Ferrari.

One bullet had passed through his abdomen, another through a lung.

With the man bleeding profusely, his blood pressure flagging, Ferrari and his team inserted a “large-bore” catheter near the “top part of the heart” to transfuse four units of blood — an amount equal to roughly 40% of the blood in his body.

Ferrari performed an emergency thoracotomy, making an incision “between the nipple and the side of his ribs,” then inserting another “pretty large-bore tube, almost a garden hose,” which was attached to suction, to remove blood and air from the lung that didn’t belong there.

Once the patient’s blood pressure was stabilized somewhat, and his lung “kind of re-expanded,” said Ferrari, he was rushed to the operating room, where surgeons removed a damaged kidney, and worked to stop the bleeding in his liver.

While the patient was critical, he lived. “The team performed amazingly, as usual,” said Ferrari. “But these things are intense. It’s emotional, and always difficult.”

The upside, he added, is that “we see enough of it at Memorial” — which treats several gunshot victims per month, he estimates — “that we stay proficient.”

Memorial recently went through an intensive trauma designation process with the American College of Surgeons, which presented it with a rating of A-plus, said Ferrari. “We’re really happy, and very proud of that.”

A Level II trauma center features “millions and millions of dollars’” worth of specialized rooms and equipment, said Ferrari, along with an all-star staff of trauma surgeons, neurosurgeons and vascular surgeons who are constantly on call.

“It doesn’t just happen anywhere,” Ferrari noted. “It’s a big deal.”

And a big expense — as is America’s epidemic of gun violence. In its comprehensive 2021 tally of the economic toll of that bloodshed, Everytown For Gun Safety reported that American taxpayers pay a daily average of $34.8 million for medical care, first responders, ambulances, police and criminal justice services related to gun violence. That doesn’t include $4.7 million paid every day by families affected by those shootings for medical bills and mental health support, and $140.3 million in losses from work missed due to injury or death.

For all that, Ferrari finds his work profoundly fulfilling. “I wouldn’t trade what I do with anyone,” he said — even though “more and more emergency doctors are finding ways out of the profession” due to burnout and the fact that “we do see so much tragedy.”

In the last two months, four members of his staff have been assaulted. “I don’t mean shoved. I mean like, punched in the face,” he said.

“We come to work every day and we’re dealing not only with gang members, but with people suffering from intense mental illness, and people who are intensely drug addicted,” he said.

“We are the last stop for them.”

Asked if Memorial is treating more gunshot victims than in the past, Ferrari said he’s noticed “an ebb and flow.”

“COVID decreased our trauma, given people weren’t out and about as much,” he said. “Shootings did decrease there, for a while. But they’re coming back strong.”

You can reach Staff Writer Austin Murphy at austin.murphy@pressdemocrat.com or on Twitter @ausmurph88.

Find more local reactions and reflections on the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, here.

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