WAUWATOSA - They treat more than 50,000 patients each year.

And we got an exclusive look inside the Froedtert and Medical College emergency room.

It's the only adult level one trauma center in the Milwaukee area.

Each year more than 3,000 patients are treated for trauma; the most life threatening injuries.

One p.m. on a Monday the pagers go off.

DR. CHRIS DECKER: "Can you do that now? Do you want me to do something here? I want you to square that away before six comes."

DR. JON VAN HEUKELOM: "Yeah, I'll go do that right now."

Doctors and nurses scramble for an ambulance carrying a man with partially amputated hand.

The ambulance arrives and 70-year-old Kenneth Larsen is brought in. Doctors spring into action.

DR. CHRIS DECKER: "How's your pain?"

PATIENT: "Getting worse."

DR. DECKER: "Would you like some pain medication?"

PATIENT: "Maybe."

DR. DECKER: "Gonna give you some pain medication. We're going to do that."

Hand specialists, trauma surgeons, doctors, nurses, all converge on Larsen.

Larsen is lucky. His hand can be saved.

He's taken up to an operating room.

He's also lucky that he's being cared for in one of the nation's premier trauma units.

It's a responsibility nurses and doctors take very seriously. Lanna Zobel is a registered nurse and the ER shift flow coordinator. "It hits you after the big event; After everything has calmed down. After the patient's gone up to the floor, the operating room or the families come and gone. Yes, things have settled down and the room is quiet. That's when it hits you."

Dr. Jon Van Heukelom is a senior resident in the ER. "We do see some tragic things. Later on when you have a chance to actually sit down and think about it, more of the emotions come into play."

During our exclusive time in the Froedtert and Medical College ER one thing became impressively clear... the teamwork of the almost 200 ER employees benefits every patient who spends time there.