There is a remarkable parallel between a little boy growing up in Ocho Rios, Jamaica who admired his father — a surgeon — and a man whose heart shattered at the news that 26 lives were lost during the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown.
For Dr. Lenworth Jacobs, vice president of academic affairs and chief academic officer at Hartford Hospital, the career he would pursue and the passion that would fuel it were never in question. Jacobs knew as a child in rural Jamaica that he would follow in his father’s footsteps and practice medicine. He also knew that he would use his professional calling to provide care to people who found themselves with the severest of injuries and in the most harrowing of circumstances.
The tragic events that occurred on Dec. 14, 2012, at Sandy Hook inspired the trauma surgeon to create a model that would improve the survivability of victims and implement life-saving methods among emergency personnel handling active shooter and intentional mass casualty events.
“I felt I had to become involved — not in responding to something but in being prepared and creating a national model that could be in place, 24/7,” said Jacobs. “[The purpose is] so that if something like this happens again we’re not saying — ‘Oh my God! What do we do about this?’ But, we know exactly what to do about it.”
As a regent for the American College of Surgeons, Jacobs was asked to chair The Joint Committee to Create a National Policy to Enhance Survivability from Mass Casualty Shooting Events.
The committee, which included individuals from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FBI, law enforcement, military and emergency medical services, convened at Hartford Hospital in April 2013. The meeting became known as the Hartford Consensus and the group’s work has proven crucial in highlighting the fact that many of first responders’ existing practices during mass casualty and active shooter events are not ideally aligned to maximize victim survival.
The Hartford Consensus introduced an acronym, THREAT, to describe the necessary response to such events. The acronym identifies five fundamental elements to handling critical situations: threat suppression, hemorrhage control, rapid extrication to safety, assessment by medical providers and transport to definitive care.
Shortly after Jacobs spearheaded the first meeting, the importance of his efforts was validated after the Boston Marathon bombings happened later that same month.
David Wade, former chief medical officer of the FBI, worked extensively with Jacobs on the Hartford Consensus and its follow-up meeting, Hartford Consensus II, in July 2013. Wade said the group’s recommendations quickly caught fire in the medical community.
“Getting bystanders, police officers, and EMS to respond rapidly using techniques to stop hemorrhaging can save a lot of lives,” explained Wade. “[Hartford Consensus] essentially came at the right time — in terms of the confluence of events — to catch the medical community’s attention.”
Jacobs’ work has garnered national acclaim. He was invited to brief White House officials about Hartford Consensus’ recommendations and also received the White House Medical Unit medallion.
He also serves as the professor of surgery at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and director of Hartford Hospital’s trauma program.
“He’s someone who has good leadership, organizational and interpersonal skills and he was able to convert his passion into concrete actions,” said Wade. “It’s not so much that he was a part of Hartford Consensus — it was that he was the leadership. Someone had to lead the charge and make sure that things progressed in an orderly fashion.”
For Jacobs, his work coincides seamlessly with the passion he has always had for taking care of people.
“Nobody chooses when they get injured or when they get severely sick,” Jacobs said. “But, you do have to get care. And you have to have the sense that you can go somewhere and get the best care right now — no matter who you are.”
