"48 Hours' focuses on Children's Hospital

"48 Hours' focuses on Children's Hospital
CBS News show captures real drama in Cincinnati emergency room
Thursday, October 8, 1998
BY JOHN KIESEWETTER
The Cincinnati Enquirer

In this scene from 48 Hours, burn victim Adam Dalton, 12, of Amelia, is wheeled into Children's emergency room

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A dozen doctors and nurses huddle around a badly burned boy in a crowded hospital emergency room, racing to save his life.
It looks like a scene from NBC's ER, the most popular show on television: Close-ups of the young victim as trauma team members shout out his heart rate and prepare to slide him off the gurney.
"On my count! One, two three!"
But this isn't fiction.
The blood isn't fake.
The victim isn't an actor.
These heroes are real in CBS' 48 Hours, shot at Children's Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati the weekend of June 6-7.
Tonight, the whole country will learn what we've known all along: Children's Hospital is not only one of the nation's finest pediatric emergency centers but also the busiest. It dealt with more than 80,000 visits last year.

ON THE AIR

What: 48 Hours.

When: 10 p.m. today.

Where: Channels 12, 7.

"We're ready to handle anything that walks in the door -- whether they can walk in the door or not," Dr. Robert Shapiro, the attending physician in charge that weekend, tells CBS.
In a fast-paced hour that intertwines ER action with concerned family members -- not unlike NBC's fictional show -- viewers will see Children's staff members treat three accident victims delivered by Air Care helicopter, plus another eight kids with a wide range of problems, from broken bones to swallowed Legos.
And that was "a slow weekend," Dr. Shapiro says.

Herbert Meisner, center, got treatment for a cut above his left eye. With him are his dad David and baby sitter Stephanie Jurgens.

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What makes 48 Hours' "Save My Child" so compelling are the two Tristate people through which CBS tells its story -- Adam Dalton, 12, the Amelia boy burned over 40 percent of his body as he played with paint thinner, and Dr. Shapiro, 44, a 15-year veteran.
Adam emerges as the smart kid who nearly loses his life from a stupid mistake.
"Even though you think your kid knows what's dangerous and what's not, sometimes common sense doesn't override curiosity," Kim Dalton, his mother, tells a CBS News crew.
When Adam screams, every viewer will feel his pain.
"Oh! -- My! -- God! Don't stick me again!"
Dr. Shapiro later explains that everyone in the trauma room had trouble focusing at that moment.
"It was terrible. We all felt for him -- but there is no choice when you have life-threatening therapies and treatments that need to be instituted," he says.
In Dr. Shapiro, 48 Hours (and Children's Hospital) couldn't have found a better star for TV drama. He comes through as a combination of ER's finest -- the brains of a Dr. Greene (Anthony Edwards), the compassion of a Dr. Carter (Noah Wyle) and the charm of a Dr. Ross (George Clooney).
All that, and he's handsome, too. Think of him as ER's Dr. Carter in 20 years.
"Children are not just little adults," Dr. Shapiro explains in the opening segment. "We try to be more friendly to children also. We try to be less of a frightening atmosphere for kids."
Local heroes
The CBS crews -- 20 people in all -- roam the halls to capture Children's friendly folks dispensing liberal quantities of TLC, with the necessary shots and stitches. The prescription often includes puppets, Popsicles or pancakes.
"I talk to the child about anything I think the child might be distracted by," Dr. Shapiro says.

Brooke Steiner's pelvis was crushed in a tractor accident.

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So he engages Ryan Stoneberger, 2 1/2, about his breakfast while examining the thigh bone he broke falling down stairs.
"This is what pediatrics is all about. It's how to get your answers from a young child who's uncooperative and who's afraid. So you talk about pancakes."
Dr. Shapiro will be the first to say he's embarrassed that 48 Hours chooses to feature him instead of the other 118 Children's Hospital emergency department employees. Most of his co-workers are anonymous (though caring) supporting players, except for the 4 1/2-minute profile of chaplin Fred Cook.
And ER writers will be envious of the stranger-than-fiction patients who need medical attention:
Brooke Steiner, the Fenwick High School freshman whose pelvis was crushed when she fell off a tractor driven by her brother near Mason.
A boy named David who broke his arm climbing a fence, resulting in his third trip to Children's. Two years ago he broke his leg trying to toboggan down his swing set slide, then broke an arm falling off his crutches.
Toddler Herbert Meisner, brought in for stitches to close a head wound while his mother was in Good Samaritan Hospital, about to go into labor.
Jennifer Andrews, who fell out of a tree and broke her arm when her little brother pointed to a spider.
"When you spend a Saturday night in a children's emergency room," says correspondent Bill Laggattuta, "the thing that you notice is that boys will be boys -- at the most inconvenient times."
Happy endings
Take Dewey Bryant, for example. He ran into the path of a car outside his grandmother's home in Pendleton County. It took hospital officials more than five hours to track down his mother -- while the woman who hit him sat alone in the hospital waiting room.
"We really lucked out. We had some great "characters' for our story, and I mean that in a positive way," explains 48 Hours senior producer Reid Collins Jr., who crafted the 44-minute show from 84 hours of videotape shot here.
"There were some life-threatening emergencies," Mr. Collins says, "but the great thing about it is that the endings were all happy."
Like ER, this story isn't confined by hospital walls. 48 Hours returned here last month to shoot Brooke at home and Adam attending classes at Amelia Middle School.
48 Hours also interviews the families of Dr. Shapiro and the Rev. Cook about the men's all-consuming jobs.
"We find it's not a good idea to sit around waiting for Fred to come home," Colleen Cook says.
In the next scene, 48 Hours shows her husband at 1:45 a.m. in his office, preparing to spend the night on his couch.
Near the end of the show, correspondent Wyatt Andrews chats with Dr. Shapiro as he heads home after midnight.
Does he ever feel lucky?
"I think about that all the time, because I am a very lucky man. I have three wonderful healthy children. I have a wonderful healthy wife," he says.
"And being in emergency medicine -- and seeing tragedy every day -- is a very good reminder of how lucky we all are."
And 48 Hours is a good reminder how lucky we are to have an excellent pediatric hospital here with such caring staffers. Children's Hospital couldn't buy better publicity with a million dollars of marketing.
How children treated are doing
Children's Hospital stays busy

John Kiesewetter is Enquirer TV/radio critic. Write him at 312 Elm St., Cincinnati, 45202.