As violence continues to surge in Philadelphia, a new University of Pennsylvania study shows that Philadelphia police transport two of every three penetrating trauma victims to the hospital, helping ensure exceptional survival rates.
The study found that scoop and run hospital transports had survival rates comparable to those transported by EMS professionals highlighting how crucial police have become to patient care, Fox 29 reports.
"We saw that patients transported by police are often more seriously injured than patients transported by EMS, but after controlling for significant differences between groups, police-transported patients have similar mortality levels," said the study’s lead author, Jeremy Cannon, MD, the Trauma medical director and section chief of Trauma at Penn Medicine.
The Philadelphia Police Department has authorized its officers to quickly transport trauma victims to a trauma center if they feel the situation is dire.
