Commercialappeal.com

Improving surgical skills, medical advances make difference between life and death for shooting victims

As LaRhon Threalkill pulled himself by his elbows along the dining room floor, his legs dragging uselessly behind in a trail of blood, he sensed time was running out.

“I thought I was going to die. I couldn’t move. I felt like this was it,’’ says Threalkill, shot seven times and left for dead during a 2015 robbery. “But something told me, ‘No, LaRhon. There’s more fight in you. You can’t just allow yourself to die and end your life like this.’ ’’

Extraordinary will and good fortune helped save Threalkill’s life that night after he invited an acquaintance into his Southeast Memphis home.

But an investigation of medical records by The Commercial Appeal reveals he and a legion of other shooting victims are evidence of a wild card in Memphis’ battle to reduce a murder rate that far exceeds state and national averages: improvements in trauma care. In the crosshairs: Everyday life at Looney and Dunlap in one of Memphis’ most dangerous neighborhoods. This is part four of Wounded City, a six-part CA investigation exploring the gun violence problem in Memphis. Miss a day? Catch up at commercialappeal.com/woundedcity for exclusive content, video, photos and podcasts.

Simply put, improving surgical skills and techniques at The Regional Medical Center’s Elvis Presley Memorial Trauma Center are impacting the city’s homicide rate.

Injury-related shootings grew as much as one-third in Memphis between 2006 and 2015, yet the murder rate fell nearly five percent, according to the newspaper’s analysis of crime statistics and more than 5,500 cases from the hospital’s trauma registry.

Over the same period, the mortality