
Shady Grove, Suburban, and Holy Cross all have limited peds services. |
I am an RN. Neither Shady Grove nor Suburban had a pediatric ICU, otherwise known as a PICU. Once a child gets stabilized in a ER, if it’s a serious case, a PICU is needed. The more serious pediatric cases at Shady Grove get transferred by ambulance or helicopter to Children’s Hospital, generally. It could have been the case that INOVA Fairfax had greater availability at the time of the attack. Suburban can deal with adult trauma, but not pediatric trauma. Dispatchers are not supposed to send any trauma patients to Shady Grove. It’s fine for other cases. |
It was well-documented and reported that MCPS tried to sweep the Damascus rape case under the rug. Same with the Rockville HS rape case. Definitely normal for MCPS. Admin and Central Office don't want the bad press. |
So basically what you are saying is the dispatchers made the call that she needed to go to a trauma center. I don't know if it is one poster or multiple posters, but enough of trying to downplay this. |
They have enough of that with the Beidelmen case. Wasn't he from LPMS too? |
RN again - the only pediatric trauma center in Maryland is Hopkins in Baltimore. It generally serves the northern half of the state. |
Correct me if I’m wrong, but from what I understand, if the incident happened on school property, MCPS and the PD have an agreement in which MCPS claims the sole right to make the determination of whether to notify the police. The police abide by MCPS’s decision. I don’t think you can go over the heads of MCPS to call the police on school grounds. I’m not sure what happens if the victim on their own tries to file a police report later on. I believe PD will defer to MCPS? |
So the nearest fully staffed ER is Fairfax INOVA and National Children’s hospital? Which is an hour or two away with traffic. |
I listened to the dispatch recordings and didn’t hear her GCS mentioned but did hear them reporting they were taking the child to Inova. I hope somebody knows her parents and can tell them to file a police report. The video needs to be pulled and I don’t trust MCPS to keep it archived.
If a parent files a police report, MCPD shouldn’t be able to defer to MCPS if an actual crime was committed. MCPS is not law enforcement and are not qualified to determine if something is a chargeable offense or not. That’s what police and the State’s Attorney are for. |
If a parent files a report, then the police have to investigate this, right? I really hope someone tells that child's parents to file a report. |
Oh I just saw RN’s posts after the fact—thanks. That’s good to know. |
Are the dispatch recordings still available to hear? |
Pediatric trauma ER, yes. Suburban is the only adult trauma ER in the county. It’s not uncommon for kids injured in MoCo to go to Inova. For parts of the county they’ll get there faster than Children’s. Dispatch and the Emergency resource center take volume, distance, and time of day into account as they determine which hospital to transport to. |
That makes sense—I hope you’re right. |
So if they determined that she needed to go to Inova, then they deemed it serious? |