Every year on New Year’s Eve, Juan Rendon thinks about his best friend Junior Estudillo, who was shot and killed on Chicago’s West Side in 2012, when Estudillo was 19 years old. In the 14 years since, Rendon has held a persistent thought: Junior would have survived if he hadn’t had to travel so far to receive the care he needed.
“I always think about his potential, and how it was gone in a matter of hours,” Rendon said recently. “This loss is definitely something that I wish I could turn back the hands of time on.”
There are many other survivors like Rendon whose loved ones could have been saved if trauma care were closer. Recent research shows the numbers that back this up. A study published last month, led by the researchers from the University of Chicago, found that after the 2018 reopening of the UChicago Medicine, a Level 1 trauma center that had been closed for 30 years because of financial strain, shooting victims got to the hospital almost 10 minutes sooner, having traveled a shorter distance to receive care. Firearm-related deaths decreased by almost 4 percent…