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From K. H. O. U. T. V. Houston. The spirit of texas. This is 11. News popping sounds are still being heard around the bio city tonight. Not like last night though when the sound of gunfire was mixed in with the firecrackers. It was a loud and

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dangerous New Year's Eve. In Houston Ron Trevino reports, gunfire brings in the New Year near downtown, a similar sound in southwest Houston and the heights. It is not a joyous act. That is not an act of celebration. It's fact a dangerous act, especially when you have

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bullets whizzing past your window. Houston city council member Sheila Jackson lee says it's time something was done about people shooting off their firearms. On New Year's Eve, the only thing that we can enforces a shooting off of a gun illegally inside the city limits. And because

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of the superior jurisdiction of the state, the state regulates the use of guns. I would like the legislature to look at this particular act. While many shot their guns into the air, some pointed the guns at each other as in this case shortly after midnight where

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an argument reportedly over money turned violent, two men were shot, one of them fatally and while all the gunfire may have made some Houston neighborhoods seemed like war zones overnight. The effects were being felt here at Ben Taub Hospital where the medical staff struggled to keep

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up with a caseload. The assistant head nurse looks over the severe trauma cases they took in overnight from midnight to eight a.m. Seven shootings, 12 aggravated assaults, Four stabbings and four auto accidents, one of them fatal those night, nurses and the physicians worked very, very hard

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last night and I understand why they did because it was, it was, it was packed this morning. A lot of blood on the floor had a couple of people on ventilators. A lot of people just just lying around. I have no idea. Here's one of the

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shooting victims, one of the lucky ones he lived. Rene. Trujillo was shot as he left a new year's celebration in Northwest Houston when I was walking, there's a field off of golf and I'm pretty sure whoever is listening, that guy, he's listening to me now. I'm

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just grateful that he shot me there in the, but not in my head because he shot at me three times before I got to the payphone. Renee gets to go home if only on crutches. But he says he's thankful to be alive in 1994. Next New

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Year's Eve. He says he's staying home, Ron Trevino 11 News channel 13 KTRK TV Houston and New Year's Eve and morning is the worst time of the year for Houston's emergency medical services and last night was no exception today. Those whose job it is to save

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lives are praising the E. M. T. S and the staff at Ben Taub Hospital, Don Cobos has more Houston's fire department ambulance service didn't have much time to rest this New Year's night from eight PM to midnight. It was a typical friday night, 100 calls came

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in for help ranging from vehicle accidents to shooting injuries. Last night was just amazing. As soon as midnight struck it, everything just broke loose. Houston's Emergency medical Services director Dr Paul Pepe says for the next two hours dispatchers received a call a minute and by four

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a.m. Emergency medical technicians responded to an unbelievable 200 calls in four hours. Ben tops emergency room felt the pinch. Every operating room there, 36 had patients getting attention. Chris cam says they were prepared to handle it, but she admitted it was trying at times with the

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people that have had a lot to drink. They often become very violent, very verbally abusive, physically abusive and so it takes a lot of stuff ours too. Things could have been worse here if it had not been for the first responder program. Under the Emergency Medical

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services program. Now with first responder firefighters with backgrounds are called to a scene in there. Fire trucks first. What they do when they get there is assess the situation and then determine if an ambulance should be called. Almost every firefighter has gone through the special emerges

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medical technician training course. That's why officials are calling the first responder program a lifesaver. If the neighborhood fire truck can get there, assess the situation to find out. We don't need an ambulance actually in that situation it's not an emergency. They were able to spirit for

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other people who did have life threatening situation. Still hero last night, in some respects, was the neighborhood fire trucks, Don Cobos, 13 Eyewitness News.