Warner Bros. : Smallville Ledger

Smallville, Tuesdays on THEWB networkFRONT PAGEARCHIVESCLASSIFIEDSLETTERS TO THE EDITORCOMMUNITY CALENDERWatch Smallville, on THEWB network. The Smallville Ledger is the local newspaper of Smallville, Kansas, The Meteor Capital of the World! You do not seem to have Javascript enabled, or you have an extremely old browser. You need Javascript to use Smallville.net Please enable it in your browser preferences and return to Smallville.net Click here to return to Warner Bros Site, Click here to see the sitemap or Click here to download a browser with Javascript.

Volume 0 Number 0

SURGERY DURING A SIEGE

While Saving Lives, Doctors Sometimes Risk Their Own

By Jim Bradlee

As Dr. Wayne Scanlan lowered his scalpel to make the first incision in anesthetized patient Jonathan Kent's chest in preparation for a demanding triple bypass operation, the muffled sounds of shouting and running feet were heard in the operating room at Smallville Medical Center.

"I just thought it was another disgruntled patient making trouble," recalled the cardiologist. "I continued with the procedure."

But it wasn't long before the familiar sirens of approaching ambulances were joined by those of police cruisers and bomb squad trucks out front. Unaware of the mayhem taking place in the hospital's waiting area, Scanlan labored over the tubes, clamps and machinery keeping his unconscious patient alive, calmly issuing orders to the team assisting him.

"It wasn't until Yeager burst into the OR that we had any idea there was a situation developing in the building," said Scanlan, referring to Attending Physician Dr. Sean Yeager, who was struggling with a hopeless liver patient when the sufferer's younger brother arrived in the hospital with a homemade bomb strapped to his chest.

"I knew something was up because he didn't even put a mask on before he came in, and he looked like he'd just seen a ghost. He just stood in the doorway and said 'Wayne, I think we're gonna need that liver you got right there.' We would have laughed out loud if it weren't so obvious he was dead serious."

It was at that point that a Sheriff's Department sharpshooter ended the life of the adolescent terrorist,

the officer's single gunshot reverberating through the halls of the medical center, followed by a shock wave that shook the structure's rafters.

Thankfully, Kent survived the ordeal, as did Drs. Scanlan and Yeager and the dozens of other innocent people in the hospital at the time. But those shock waves will continue long after the mess in SMC's waiting area is cleaned up. Already the debate over unionizing doctors is being revived, and security measures are being beefed up--somewhat akin to fixing the barn door after the horses have escaped.

The circumstances call to mind a similar situation in 2002, when doctors at Chicago's County General Hospital staged a walkout to protest the lack of metal detectors in their emergency room. A chief resident led the revolt, two years after himself surviving a vicious workplace attack that also took the life of his female colleague.

Asked if doctors at SMC will have to resort to such tactics, Scanlan commented, "Granted, we're not a major urban hospital like County General. We don't have riots and gunmen in the emergency room every third week, or helicopters falling off the roof and Army tanks smashing into the ambulance bay. But there has to be a certain standard of protection even in Smallville. After Dr. Helen Bryce was attacked and robbed in her lab, we all thought nothing like that could ever happen here again. But here we are, less than a year later, performing delicate cardiac surgery while someone is getting ready to blow us all sky high. It's unreal."