Gun violence adds burden to trauma centers stretched thin by COVID
Mirella Rangel sat in the front passenger seat as her boyfriend pulled up to a South Side house to drop off his friend after the three spent much of the morning March 20 at a gun show.
The friend, 18-year-old Alonzo B
Lewis, asked to look at the handgun Rangel had purchased at the show. Ensuring the safety was on, Rangel handed the loaded weapon to the man in the back seat. Moments later multiple gunshots went off, critically injuring Rangel as the bullet passed through the front seat.
Rangel’s boyfriend called 911 and she was rushed to Ohiohealth Grant Medical Center. She was one of more than 500 patients treated for gunshot wounds at the hospital in the fiscal year ending June 30 – a 74% increase from the two years prior, according to Ohiohealth officials.
The Downtown hospital, one of two Level I trauma centers in Columbus designated to treat the most severely injured and one of 12 in Ohio, reports it is seeing the highest volume of gunshot wound victims in the hospital’s history.
Rangel, 22, said she remained at Grant Medical Center for the next month-and-a-half as she underwent
The San Francisco-based company compiled and released the report in order to gain insight into where fatal crashes often occur and understand any contributing factors, said Doug Milnes, a data analyst and spokesman for Moneygeek.
“We undertook this study to help individuals identify the local roads that are more dangerous so individuals can make safe choices while driving them,” Milnes said. “In some instances, there’s an opportunity for authorities to make positive changes to roads.”
The stretch of I-71 singled out in the Moneygeek analysis is already a priority for the Ohio Department of Transportation, said Breanna Badanes, a spokeswoman for ODOT in the Greater Columbus area. Because the corridor runs through a densely populated residential and business area, Badanes said ODOT is considering solutions that would minimize the disruption to the surrounding area.
“We’re already studying the corridor and have committed funding to develop plans for a solution,” Badanes said in an email after the Dispatch shared the Moneygeek report’s findings. “The crashes primarily occur in locations where bottlenecks develop, which is why addressing the congestion will be key to improving safety.”
ODOT’S statewide safety program is the 4th-largest in the nation, with more than $150 million dedicated to safety improvements each year, Badanes said.
Moneygeek analyzed 3,129 fatal crashes in Ohio — including ones that involved pedestrians and bicyclists —
and found that more that 1,800 roads in the state were the scene of fatal crashes during those three years.
Based on the report’s findings, Franklin County’s roadways appear to be particularly dangerous for motorists.
The 287 people who died in that three-year period on Franklin County’s roadways is 43 more than people who died in traffic crashes in that timespan in Cuyahoga County, the report found. The majority of those fatal crashes (17) occurred along Interstate 270.
And within Columbus alone, 182 fatal crashes occurred between 2017 and 2019, resulting in 198 deaths.
Of the four deadliest 5-mile stretches of roadway in Ohio, two are located in
Columbus.
In addition to the I-71 stretch that ranked first, Cleveland Avenue between Huy Road in North Linden and Maplewood Drive on the Northeast Side ranked fourth, according to Moneygeek’s analysis.
The Cleveland Avenue stretch is a busy undivided highway with vehicles coming into the roadway from intersections and businesses, Milnes said. In 2020, there was construction on the Downtown stretch of Cleveland Avenue to improve safety, although the project was south of the highlighted 5-mile stretch, Milnes noted.
The second-deadliest 5-mile stretch in Ohio was Interstate 75 in Cincinnati between Allen Road and Glendale Milford Road, while Interstate 480 between Broadview Road and Exit 20A at the I-71 interchange in Independence, south of Cleveland, ranked third.
In March, Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther released the city’s Vision Zero Initiative, which is meant to improve safety in areas of the city with the highest likelihood of traffic fatalities by lowering speed limits or redesigning streets.
In Ohio, September had the most fatal crashes of any month between 2017 and 2019 — about 10.4% — likely due to the amount of motorists traveling during Labor Day weekends.
However, Milnes noted that while the location of fatal crashes can be instructive, the factors contributing to the wrecks may be far more informative.
“Even the most trafficked and deadly roads contribute a fraction of the total fatal accidents,” he said.
For instance, 45 fatal crashes occurred between 2017 and 2019 along the entirety of Interstate 70 from Pennsylvania to Indiana, comprising less than 2% of all deaths in Ohio.
Yet 31% of fatal crashes in Ohio involved drunken driving, and 25% involved motorists driving at a high rate of speed, according to accident investigation reports. Distracted driving was reported by traffic investigators to be involved in just 6% of fatal crashes, leading Moneygeek to rank Ohio 37th in the nation for distracted driving.
“An unanticipated but, in retrospect, obvious conclusion,” Milnes said, “is that our individual choices behind the wheel add up to be a bigger factor than the individual road or driving condition.” elagatta@dispatch.com @Ericlagatta