ONLY ON 8: Montgomery trauma surgeon concerned about “disturbing trend” of daily shootings in the Capitol City
ONLY ON 8: Violent crime continues to be a concern for residents in the Capitol City. Action 8 spoke to a Montgomery surgeon to shed some light on what doctors and nurses are dealing with daily. Doctors and nurses in the emergency rooms are on the front lines trying to put back together patients whose bodies have been torn apart by gunfire. So far, there have been 27 homicides in Montgomery this year, but for every one homicide, there are seven gunshot wounds or stabbings that occur. “It’s a disturbing trend. We’re seeing a lot more teenagers and admitting a lot more teenagers,” says Dr. Richard Mullins.
Dr. Richard Mullins has spent the past 14 years treating traumatically injured patients at Montgomery’s Baptist South Hospital. He says the uptick in the number of gunshot wounds lately is alarming. “It has really gotten bad in the last several years. This one 17 year old was admitted twice within a three month period for being shot. We’re averaging more than one gun shot a day, ” says Mullins. He is one of only three trauma surgeons in all of Montgomery County and he says, “The assault rifles, the AR15’s and some AK 47’s – those injuries are just devastating. When someone is shot with a pistol, the bowels have a hole in it or they’re kind of cut in half. When you get shot with one of these higher powered rifles, it just shreds it. It just shreds the bowel. ”
According to statistics from the state trauma registry, 92% of patients who were brought to Baptist South with gunshot wounds were shot in Montgomery County. “There’s talk that there is not really gang violence here, but just talking with some of the policeman in the emergency room, a fair number of those would disagree with that,” says Mullins. In 2022 there were 361 shooting victims. 29 were transferred from outside hospitals, but the remaining 332 were brought to Baptist South from shooting scenes in Montgomery County. In 2023 there were 429 shooting victims. 38 were transferred from outside hospitals, but 391 were shot in Montgomery County.
And so far this year – in the three month period between January and March – there have been 103 shooting victims treated. Multiply that times four, and Montgomery is likely to have 412 shootings by the end of 2024. “We’ll get 2 or 3 gunshots at one time, and then it is just overwhelming for everybody. ER times across the city, it is not just at Baptist South, are extremely long,” says Mullins. A recent article in the New York Times calculated the rate of fatal shootings in US cities. According to that article, in 2023 per 100,000 residents, Montgomery surpassed much larger cities like Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Chicago. “It’s a very complicated situation, but it is going to take a whole lot of effort, time and money; this current haphazard approach (to addressing crime) is not going to work, ” says Mullins. Dr. Mullins also told us that although a lot of the shooting injuries they see happen between midnight and 3 or 4 in the morning, they have had to treat more gunshot wounds during the day too. The number of injuries from drive by shootings has also increased.
