The trauma team at Children’s Wisconsin got the call around 5:30 p.m on Sunday, Nov. 22, to prepare for a surge of patients. The terrible tragedy at Waukesha’s Christmas Parade would lead to 18 kids being brought to the Children's Wisconsin Emergency Department (ED) with a variety of injuries, and the worried hearts of a nation came with them.
As a Level 1 pediatric trauma center and home to the largest Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) in the state with 72 beds, Children’s Wisconsin was uniquely prepared and has trained extensively for mass casualty situations. They are plans you never want to use, but went into action that Sunday. By the end of the day, 16 kids were admitted, 10 in the PICU.
More than 8,000 media stories were posted by national and local media outlets, highlighting how Children’s Wisconsin cared for kids injured at the Waukesha parade and providing updates on the conditions of the kids. Those stories include:
- MSNBC, Fox News Channel, local news channel: Aired Children’s Wisconsin news conference with Amy Drendel, DO, medical director of the Children’s Wisconsin Emergency Department and Trauma Center and professor of pediatric emergency medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin; Michael Gutzeit, MD, chief medical office; and Michael Meyer, MD, medical director of the Children’s Wisconsin Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and chief of pediatric critical care at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
- NPR, “All Things Considered: Dr. Drendel shared how Children’s Wisconsin was uniquely prepared to treat the number of kids injured.
- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, From the Waukesha Parade to the hospitals: Dr. Drendel and Maureen Luetje, DO, emergency room physician, expressed gratitude to first responders, adult hospitals who stabilized and transferred kids and all the teams at Children’s Wisconsin who responded to this tragic incident.
- TODAY Show: Highlighted kids who were discharged home to continue their recover, condition updates on those who remained in the hospital and gratitude for the outpouring of support provided to the kids hospitalized.
- Wisconsin Public Radio: Haley Miller, LCSW, a child and family therapist at Children’s Wisconsin, helped promote the mental health hotline Children’s Wisconsin established to support families working through questions, concerns and fear from the event.
- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Area mental health experts are assisting Waukesha Christmas Parade tragedy victims: Miller and Tammy Makhlouf, a licensed professional counselor and mental and behavioral health clinical manager, shared insight into the questions they are hearing from families using the mental health hotline and encourage others to use the resource.
