Morristown Medical Unveils ER Expansion, Renovation

The Emergency Department at Morristown Medical Center has been expanded. By the end of a five-phase expansion, it will have nearly doubled in size, and be able to treat about 100,000 patients a year.

None of that mattered to Adrienne Gummersell, of Long Valley, who experienced that which all parents fear the most, and which none would ever want to face.

Earlier this year, Jack, her three-year-old son, fell out of a window at their home.

"I remember kissing him on his cute, chubby little cheek," she said to the audience, noting it was a morning like any other morning. The next thing she knew, "I looked out the window to see him lying on the ground below. I couldn't tell if he was dead or alive, and I just started to scream."

Jack was rushed by helicoptor to Morristown Medical Center, where the trauma team met them on the roof. After tests, doctors said the three-year-old would need surgery to repair his skull and stop the bleeding in his brain. He made it through surgery, as the Gummersell family waited to see if he would survive. Then, they had to wait to see if his accident would have any lasting affects. "All we could do was wait, pray and have faith in the doctors, nurses and respitory therapists who were caring for him," Gummersell said.

"This day was by far the worst day of our lives, but we have had a happy ending."

While Gummersell spoke before the podium, a somewhat shy, chubby-cheeked three-year-old boy looked at his mother, then at the audience, to the ground and back to his mother.

The now-named Morristown Medical Center Emergency Department and Luciano Family Trauma and Acute Care Center will, at the completion of a $1.5 million renovation and expansion project, nearly double in size to 49,000 square feet, and have the capability of treating 100,000 patients annually. In addition, all patient rooms in the ER will be private.

Other services in the expanded and renovated Emergency Department include integrative bedside medicine–acupressure, reflexology, aromatherapy, relaxation techniques and guided imagery.

Members of the Atlantic Health System and Morristown Medical Center staff, along with several public officials, spoke of the benefits of the Emergency Department, and of the people that have and continue to make it an invaluable asset.

"This is a wonderful facility," said Dr. David Shulkin, president of Morristown Medical Center. "It's wonderful to be able to be here when people need us in their greatest times of need."

The new 13,000-square-foot trauma unit includes 15 private rooms, three connected trauma rooms and a new computed CT-Scan machine. The existing Emergency Department is next to be renovated. Last renovated in 1993 to serve 50,000 patients annually, the ER now sees more than 80,000 patients each year.

The presentation even included a mock-demonstration, with Mayor Tim Dougherty's wife, Mary, serving as patient, of the Emergency Department's facilities and procedures.

"No one wants to think about the possibility of needing emergency, life-saving care," said Dr. Louis DiFazio, director of Surgical Critical Care/Trauma for the hospital. "But when the unthinkable happens, our state-of-the-art facility now reflects the level of expertise of our physicians and staff to evaluate, diagnose and treat critical patients in an environment that also supports their families."

Lori May, the EMS coordinator for the hospital for 10 years, noted the ease of being able to bring emergency patients into the facility and get them treatment immediately. "It's so simple," she said. "There's plenty of room to work, move and interact better. It's great."

Gummersell said any visible signs of her son's fall are barely noticeable, if at all, and he shows no signs of lasting damage from the accident.

Later on in the morning program, when Gummersell picked up that shy chubby-cheeked little boy gripping the podium wall and placed him before the microphone, any shyness quickly evaporated.

The little boy smiled, laughed and said, "thank you!"

"That's really what this is all about," Dr. Shulkin said.