9.3 小练习
With the number of young people shot by guns on the rise in the US, a children's hospital in the heart of the America's capital is trying to break the cycle of violence.
In the emergency room at Children's National Hospital in Washington DC, hospital beds line the corridors as cartoons blare on television sets.
Nearby, children with the most traumatic injuries are rushed to the trauma room. These are often victims of road traffic accidents, but in recent years, more and more children have arrived with gunshot wounds. Dr Mikael Petrosyan, a paediatric trauma surgeon who has operated on victims as young as three years old, says it's a near daily occurrence.
如今，受枪伤的美国年轻人与日俱增，而一家坐落于美国首都中心区域的儿童医院正试图打破这个暴力循环。
在位于华盛顿城的国家儿童医院的急诊室里，病床整整齐齐排了一走廊。电视上则闪烁着动画片。
不远的地方，伤势最严重的儿童被火速送往创伤室。他们常常是交通意外的受害者，但近几年，越来越多的孩子被送进来时身上带着枪伤。儿科创伤外科医生，Mikael Petrosyan，曾经为低至3岁的枪击事件受害者做手术。他说，这几乎就是医院的日常。
"It's shocking, because it's senseless to me, it's mind boggling," he says.
Firearms are now the most common cause of death amongst people under 17 years old, outranking road traffic accidents. The rate of gun-related deaths amongst youths has doubled in the last decade, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open medical journal, but it has got even worse since Covid. According to Pew Research gun deaths among under 18's in the US rose by 50% between 2019-2021.
“这很令人震惊，因为对我来说它根本不应该发生。简直匪夷所思。”他说。
枪击超过了交通意外，成为现在导致17周岁以下的人死亡的最大的原因。根据一项在JAMA网络开放医学期刊中发表的研究，在过去的几十年里，被射杀的青少年数量翻了一倍。更有甚者，据皮尤研究中心的研究，这个数字在新冠疫情以来变得更大了。在美国，被射杀的18岁一下青少年数量在2019-2021年间上升到了原先的1.5倍。
But it's not just the physical wounds though that need treating, say experts who work with gunshot victims. Dr Petrosyan says that children who have been shot before are much more likely to be shot again, often because they go right back to the same places, and the same people, that led to the initial shooting.
"That child not only gets traumatized, physically, but also mentally," he says.
Young victims may need help getting back on the right track - whether that means enrolling in school, finding a new group of friends or getting a job - in order to break the cycle of violence.
但需要被治疗的并不只是生理上的创伤。治疗枪击受害者的专家们说。Petrosyan医生表示，受到过枪击的孩子们更有可能再一次被枪击，而这常常是因为他们会再次回到那些导致他们受创的地方以及人群之中。
“那个孩子不仅会生理上受到创伤，心理上也是。”他说。
年轻的受害者们亟需有人帮助着回到正轨上——不论这意味着去上学、换一群朋友还是找到一份工作——以期打破这个暴力循环。
