In the aftermath of the Thursday shooting at Northern Illinois University, Champaign-Urbana hospitals said they would be prepared if such a disaster were to strike the University community.

Eighteen patients from the shooting were brought to Kishwaukee Community Hospital, the closest hospital to NIU.

While the hospital is not a trauma care center, they were able to stabilize seven patients that were in critical condition and send them to larger trauma care centers in the area, such as Northwestern Memorial, St. Anthony Medical Center and Good Samaritan Hospital, said Sharon Emanuelson, director of marketing and public relations for Kish Health System.

“Considering the magnitude of the event, I think it went remarkably well,” Emanuelson said.

“The staff wanted to help. The hospital community stepped up like nothing we have ever seen before.”

The two main hospitals in the Champaign-Urbana area, Provena Covenant Medical Center and Carle Foundation Hospital, have different ways of preparing for an emergency situation, but both said they are ready for such a situation if it should occur.

Provena Covenant Medical Center in Urbana does not have a trauma designation, but they, like the Kishwaukee Community Hospital, are able to stabilize patients and send them where they need to go, which in most cases is Carle Hospital less than two miles away, said Interim Emergency Room Director Nancy Zutshi.

“If there were a mass casualty situation like that, we would admit and treat those that are less critical and others would be sent to Carle,” Zutshi said.

“We have people on call; the whole hospital would come in and do whatever needs to be done.”

Provena has regular disaster drills but Zutshi said they have never had to deal with an NIU-type situation.

However, the hospital sees between 36,000 and 38,000 patients a year and would be prepared for any situation that would come their way, Zutshi said.

Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana has been designated by the Illinois Department of Public Health as a Level 1 trauma center since 1988.

Level 1 is the highest level of designation, meaning the hospital can handle the most extreme trauma situations.

And out of 14 hospitals in the region, Carle is the only Level 1 certified, serving a region of 22 different counties, said Allen Rinehart, director of the Emergency Department for Carle Hospital.

If officials were alerted that a shooter situation had occurred on campus, Carle administration would be alerted, tell the trauma surgeon and other doctors and nurses, while trying to put together an estimate number of patients to bring in the right amount of caretakers, Rinehart said.

“We practice once or twice a year and have a specific plan for such local emergencies,” Rinehart said.

“The biggest problem tends to be communication from inside the hospital and back out.”

There is also a disaster plan in place if there were to be a large-scale disaster at an event at Memorial Stadium or Assembly Hall, which would be the only kind of situation where patients may have to be sent to hospitals in other regions of the state, he added.

“The community is very well protected,” Rinehart said.