Grady workers get praise and pizza for bus crash work

Emergency and trauma workers at Grady Memorial Hospital got a collective pat on the back — and stomach — Friday for their work in connection with last week’s deadly bus crash in south Fulton County.

The emergency staff at Huntsville Hospital in Huntsville, Ala., sent 25 large pizzas to the Grady workers in a show of appreciation, Grady spokeswoman Khara Persad said.

“We know what it’s like to be there, so this gesture is the least we can do to recognize the people who step up in an emergency to save lives,” said Joyce Thomas, emergency preparedness coordinator at Huntsville Hospital.

The bus from Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Huntsville was on its way to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport for a mission trip to Botswana when it crashed on Camp Creek Parkway, killing a 17-year-old girl and injuring dozens of other passengers.

“Our physicians, nurses and staff worked together to provide lifesaving care — everyone who came to Grady is in stable condition, and some have returned home,” Persad said.

For the past 10 years, Huntsville’s emergency staff has anted up to send pizzas to other hospitals that do similar emergency work, Thomas said.

“In 2006 we activated our disaster plan when a high school bus filled with students plunged 30 feet off a bridge,” Thomas said. “A few days after the crash, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston sent over pizzas for all our staff who worked during the accident, and we have been paying it forward ever since.”