The words and phrases, all so benign, appear frequently in news stories. While they provide information, they sanitize.

Two people were injured by gunshots early Sunday in an incident that may be gang-related, according to Portland police. Both were taken to hospitals with serious injuries, though the injuries aren't thought to be life-threatening.



When gang members are shot in the metro area, they frequently end up at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center, one of Oregon's trauma centers.

Sometimes they arrive, bleeding, in a car driven by a friend. In some cases, rarer than it used to be in the 1980s, they're unceremoniously dumped in front of the emergency entrance by pals who take off before the police arrive. These days, most victims arrive by ambulance. They are whisked into a room where a nurse like Sue Hull-Martin waits.

Hull-Martin has been a registered nurse for 33 years, 28 of them as an Emanuel intensive care nurse. She's also part of a large trauma team. When on duty, the members are paged when a victim is headed to the hospital. The 19 trauma nurses in the intensive care unit work three 12-hour shifts a month on the trauma team.

On this morning, a quieter one, Hull-Martin emerges from the unit in blue scrubs and settles into a chair, close enough so she can rush in if needed.

So far this year, police have responded to to 100 gang-related shootings, including eight in just the first three days of this week. Police believe gangs are antagonizing each other on social media, escalating problems that spill onto the street.

"It's not like what people see on the television or movies," she said. "We're talking about a penetrating wound."

Too many people, she said, believe in the myth surrounding non-fatal gunshot wound because of popular culture. Television westerns and police shows used to feature a shooting or two every episode. If the victim - good guy or bad guy -- didn't die, they were just "nicked," talking and quickly going about their business.

"There are so many misconceptions," said Hull-Martin, adding that current movies and most television shows are no better.

A 9mm bullet, for example, travels nearly 1,300 feet per second. That's the length of more than four football fields.

And then that metal projectile slams into a body at nearly 900 mph.

"A gunshot wound is more than a little hole," she said. "The tissue around the wound is destroyed. Organs are damaged. Take a gunshot wound to the stomach. The bullet can go through the liver, the abdomen, the spleen and damage large blood vessels."

When the emergency room staff is notified that a shooting victim is headed to the hospital, the trauma team is paged and responds within minutes. Emergency medical technicians send in updates as the ambulance makes its way to the hospital. A trauma surgeon listens to the reports, assessing if the patient can be treated in a special critical care bay within the ER, or if the patient needs emergency surgery in the operating room.

"The OR is next door," Hull-Martin said. "In that room, everything is ready. All the instruments, everything. We can get a patient from the ambulance to the OR on a gurney in 30 seconds."

Once a decision is made, the team assembles in the operating room: The surgeon, two residents, three operating room nurses, an ER trauma nurse, an ICU trauma nurse, a recording nurse to keep track of all that's taking place and an anesthesiologist.

"Seconds count," said Hull-Martin.

If a life is saved, news reports might say only that the victim "sustained non-life threatening injuries."

And it's forgotten.

But not by all.

"I see the people come to the hospital," Hull-Martin said. "The gang member's mother, father, sister and brother. The friends. This is the gang member's small community. They're crying, angry and afraid."

After time in the ER or the OR, the gunshot victim goes to the intensive care or a brain trauma unit.

"Maybe we can fix them," she said. "Maybe we can't. Brain damage, a man needing a colostomy bag, losing a limb or being confined to a wheelchair. People unable to feed themselves. This is part of gang violence."

All technically considered non-life threatening?

She nodded.

"I would call them life-altering wounds," she said. "The body is so fragile. It can take months to recover. That is a relative word, too. This is real life stuff. When a person is shot, it's destructive. A patient can spend a month in some of these units."

Over the decades, she has cared for victims of gang shootings, too many to tally. Some remain with her.

"A man who had kids and couldn't care for them," she said. "Parents who had to take a grown man home from the hospital to care for him for the rest of his life."

She has no answers about what to do about gang violence. She leaves that to the so-called experts.

"It's hard for me to understand why this continues," she said.

She stands, ready to go back behind the metal doors and into the ICU.

But first she has one final memory.

"I had one man who was shot at 17," she said. "He came back, at age 25, after being shot again."

She paused, remembering the details.

"He said he had a baby and was trying to get out of the gang," she said. "I hope it happened."

--Tom Hallman Jr.

thallman@oregonian.com; 503 221-8224

@thallmanjr