Level 3 Incident

The 35W bridge over the Mississippi river in downtown Minneapolis just collapsed. It just broke and fell into the river, bringing all of the rush hour traffic down with it.

When my brother called me to let me know - a "heads up" on my shift tonight - I thought he was kidding. But then I saw the images on tv - mammoth slabs of highway asphault lying across the river, slanted up onto the land with shapes resembling cars, semis, a school bus scattered over their surfaces. The semi was on fire. There were cars in the river. From a helicopter-scale distance it was an eerily calm image, without much movement except for the clamor of the newscasters.

and then I got the following pages:

"get to HCMC NOW"
and
" Level 3 Incident - report to ED"

I threw on some scrubs, jumped on my bike and came in, running into the ED in a sweat.

My first patient was on the top of the bridge, running from his car, and rode the bridge down as it collapsed.

We will see how the evening unfolds.