Deadly highway
An analysis of the latest fatal traffic crash data found that part of Interstate 71 in Columbus is the deadliest 5-mile stretch of roadway in Ohio during a three-year period.
If you’ve always thought Columbus drivers were bad, now you have some proof.
An analysis of the latest federal fatal traffic crash data found that a portion of Interstate 71 in Columbus ranked as the deadliest 5-mile stretch of roadway in Ohio during a three-year period.
Moneygeek, a personal finance technology company, analyzed three years of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data on fatal crashes between 2017 and 2019 and found that 10 fatal crashes occurred on I-71 between 11th Avenue to the south and Morse Road to the north — the most for any 5-mile stretch in the state.
Additionally, Franklin County had the most fatal crashes of any of Ohio’s 88 counties, with 270 fatal crashes resulting in 287 deaths, the report found.
multiple operations and recovered from her wounds. The emotional scars are taking even longer to heal.
“It was hard to process it at first because I couldn’t believe anything like that could happen to me,” Rangel said. “I know anyone can get shot, but I couldn’t believe it was actually me, myself.”
So far this year, Columbus police have been dispatched on more than 900 reports of shootings, records show. That figure does not account for calls coded as shots fired or for unknown reports that were later determined to be shootings.
By comparison, at this time in 2020 police had responded to a little over 700 reported shootings.
As of Monday afternoon, Columbus police homicide detectives had investigated 157 homicides, 8 shy of surpassing the record 175 homicides the city had in 2020.
At Grant and the city’s other Level I trauma center, Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center, medical professionals are working to stave off that grim milestone for as long as they can.
The relentless gun violence plaguing Columbus and major cities across the country has led health care leaders to say they are essentially dealing with two pandemics at once: COVID-19 and gun violence.
“It’s absolutely something we’ve struggled with more than ever before,” said Urmil Pandya, medical director of Grant’s trauma center. “I’ve never seen the health care system as a whole as at capacity and as overwhelmed as it’s been.”
Grant and Wexner Medical Center are designated as Level I trauma centers by the American College of Surgeons – OSU Wexner since 1987 and Grant since 2001 – for the comprehensive treatment and rehabilitation each provides for the most-severe of injuries.
Despite the ongoing public health crisis from the pandemic, neither Level I trauma center has so far turned away patients, said Mark Conroy, medical director of the Wexner Medical Center’s emergency department.
Wexner Medical Center’s trauma unit has treated 85 gunshot wound patients so far this year. In 2020, its trauma unit treated 112 patients for the entire year.
“Our staff has done an admirable job handling the strain of COVID on top of all the added violence,” Conroy said. “People are tired, but we’re a tight-knit team of individuals who rely on each other.”
With a team of 13 dedicated trauma surgeons, Grant touts itself as the largest trauma center in the state, evaluating more than 7,000 patients and admitting 6,000 each year.
For comparison, Cleveland Clinic, which has six dedicated trauma surgeons, evaluated 2,405 trauma patients in 2020 and admitted 1,816 to its level 1 trauma center, according to figures provided
by a spokeswoman. Mercy Health’s St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Youngstown and its St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Toledo each see up to about 2,200 trauma patients each year, a spokesman said.
In 2017, a $5.7 million renovation of Grant’s trauma space included increasing trauma bays from two to three and the construction of a new helipad capable of dual landings.
The following year, funding from Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s office allowed Grant to launch a Trauma Recovery Center to provide victims of violent crime with screenings, counseling, support and case management, said Geneva Sanford, who manages the center. The Ohiohealth Foundation has provided additional funding to support the program.
As violence rages across the United States, such a program is seen by some experts as a critical piece in addressing and treating the root cause of violence.
Fatimah Loren Dreier, executive director of the Health Alliance for Violence Intervention, coauthored an April column in The Washington Post pointing to research suggesting that with sufficient and dependable sources of funding, violence intervention strategies can reduce gun violence that disproportionately victimizes young Black men.
“People are dying and they’re dying in an incredibly concentrated way; it’s not evenly distributed across the population,” Loren Dreier said in an interview with The Dispatch. “It is incredibly important to understand this population and provide transformative support for them because if we can transform their lives, it can shift violence in cities.”
Loren Dreier’s organization is specifically focused on hospital-based violence intervention programs serving patients who, because they have been shot or stabbed, are at high risk of falling into a cycle of retaliation and violence. HAVI works with hospitals and community leaders in 85 cities to provide highrisk patients with access to employment, housing, legal assistance, addiction treatment and mental health services once they’re discharged.
“It’s a different perspective because it’s not waiting for the criminal justice system, which is only designed to punish people,” Loren Dreier said. “We want to make sure we can transform people’s lives, the next generation.”
Both Grant and the Wexner Medical Center operate similar programs designed to help trauma patients when they leave the hospital.
Last fall, Grant began a one-year pilot program called VOICE – Violence, Outreach,
Intervention and Community Engagement.columbus Public Health and the Columbus Department of Recreation and Parks are partners in the program, which connects social workers with people who have been shot, stabbed or assaulted.
So far, 26 patients have been part of the VOICE program, said Teresa Poliseno, an Ohiohealth nurse who is the injury prevention coordinator working on the program.
Ohio State similarly operates the STAR program (Stress, Trauma And Resilience) through its Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health.
Rangel is part of the VOICE program, which she said helped her to get back on track after so many weeks of her life were lost to her hospital stay.
Six months after she was shot, Rangel now lives with family on the Northeast Side as she raises her 9-month-old daughter with her boyfriend.
Considering the life-threatening injuries Rangel sustained, she’s made a remarkable recovery – she still returns regularly to Grant for physical therapy on her right arm as she attempts to regain her range of motion. She said she’s still angry, but that anger hasn’t overshadowed the new perspective she’s gained having gone through such a harrowing ordeal.
“You really don’t know everyone’s full intentions no matter how long you know them,” Rangel said. “You look at this like a second chance at life because, honestly, I could have died.”
Eric Lagatta is a reporter at the Columbus Dispatch covering public safety, breaking news and social justice issues. Reach him at elagatta@dispatch.com. Follow him on Twitter @Ericlagatta