April 2005 Issue
Out of Practice
Katie Racicot '06On July 4, 2002, Jim Lawson, a Las Vegas grandfather of nine, suffered life-threatening injuries after a sport utility vehicle slammed into his car near McCarran International Airport. Normally, a patient injured near the airport would have been rushed to the nearby Las Vegas trauma center, the only Level One facility within 400 miles of the city. This, however, was an impossibility. The Las Vegas Trauma Center had abruptly closed because it did not have enough surgeons to staff the hospital. Instead, Lawson was taken to Desert Springs Hospital, a smaller facility that did not have the resources necessary to save his life. He died at 5:37 pm, while waiting to be airlifted to Salt Lake City.