The Brief: Time Is Not Always on Our Side—Message from IACP Police Physicians Section

In the late 1960s, Dr. R. Adams Cowley, the founder of the Baltimore, Maryland, Shock Trauma Center, coined the term “Golden Hour.” He demonstrated that delivering critically injured patients expeditiously to the operating room could dramatically improve survival rates. The resulting use of helicopters and searching to shave a minute here and there in route to the hospital paid huge dividends.