Charles Boustany: “But I want to speak about the importance of this bill not as a physician but as a parent of a son who was in a severe…”

“But I want to speak about the importance of this bill not as a physician but as a parent of a son who was in a severe car accident. About 6 years ago, I will never forget this, this was a Wednesday night, about 11:30 in the evening, and I received a phone call from the hospital from a friend of mine who is an emergency room physician who told me, was your son driving a black Alero? I said, what do you mean, ``was''? He went on to say, ``Well, I think he's going to be okay.'' He started to read off the litany of injuries that my son had. So I immediately rushed over to the hospital, and I didn't think about it, but I happened to be on call for chest trauma that night, so I was worried that I might have to operate on my own son. I get to the hospital and found out that he was in the emergency room, sitting there for about 3 to 4 hours. He was in shock. There was no organization with regard to prioritization of his injuries. I immediately jumped in and started kind of prioritizing things, and we managed to get him stabilized.”