Highland Park Hospital doesn’t see many victims of gun violence. Then July Fourth happened. Here’s how the day unfolded
It was relatively quiet the morning of July Fourth at Highland Park Hospital.
About half a dozen patients were in the emergency department of the more than 100-year-old hospital, which sits in a leafy neighborhood of the normally peaceful suburb. The 21-bed ER was staffed the same way as it would have been on any other day: five nurses, two patient care technicians and one doctor.
That all changed within a few hours, after a gunman fired to the town’s Fourth of July parade, killing seven and injuring dozens.
By late morning, nearly 30 nurses and 20 doctors were bustling through the ER. By mid-day, six surgeons were operating on 8-year-old Cooper Roberts, trying to keep him alive. At one point, doctors and nurses were treating patients with minor injuries in the waiting room, trying to keep space available elsewhere in the ER for people with more severe injuries.
Twenty-six people wounded at the parade would be treated at Highland Park Hospital that day, with others sent to NorthShore’s Glenbrook and Evanston hospitals and Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital.
NorthShore University
