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Level 3 Incident
by fiona
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.
Comments
So crazy--this was the headline story even on the BBC tonight. Glad to hear you are safe, keep us informed.
Posted by: J_John at August 2, 2007 2:23 AM
Glad to hear you're ok Fiona!
Posted by: Jason and Sarah at August 2, 2007 7:29 AM
Cabel saw this yesterday and our first thought was that you were going to be helping these people. So intense!!
Posted by: Mikey at August 2, 2007 8:04 AM
Glad to hear you're okay and able to help! I can't even begin to imagine what that experience was like for the people on the bridge. I can only hope the death toll isn't as high as they're expecting.
Posted by: katie at August 2, 2007 8:50 AM
Yikes! Best of luck with what will no doubt be an insane day.
Posted by: Xavier Emmanuelle at August 2, 2007 10:35 AM
Yikes! Best of luck with what will no doubt be an insane day.
Posted by: Xavier Emmanuelle at August 2, 2007 10:35 AM
Yikes! Best of luck with what will no doubt be an insane day.
Posted by: Xavier Emmanuelle at August 2, 2007 10:35 AM
we saw this on the cover of USA today while walking to breakfast and it was also our first thought--FIONA IS HELPING THOSE PEOPLE!!! My second thought was, "god, Fiona moves to Minneapolis to work in an ER and immediately a man almost dies in front of her house and then this crazy highway bridge collapses."
Posted by: ritchey at August 2, 2007 12:50 PM
GO FIONA!!!
Posted by: jude at August 2, 2007 2:45 PM
Oh my god.
Holy fuck.
Posted by: Azure at August 1, 2007 10:48 PM