More than a dozen people were hospitalized on Thursday, July 24, after a vanload of suspected illegal immigrants rolled on I-10, tying up traffic and Tucson’s only trauma unit. At least 18 people were injured in the series of accidents Thursday morning, nine of them seriously.

The incident raises questions about how Southern Arizona’s hospitals manage the large influx of patients. Paramedics took five of the critically injured patients to University Medical Center, where they say they have a plan in place to handle situations like these.

“Of course it may stress the system a little bit, but we’re prepared for being the only level-one trauma center,” says UMC Director of Trauma Services Michelle Ziemba. Since UMC is the only one of Tucson’s eight hospitals with a level-one trauma center, it’s common for the emergency department to be jam-packed.

“If the surge is too much and it exceeds some of our resources, we’ll pull resources from other areas of the hospital to help us out and surge up our capacity and resources,” says Ziemba. Looking at the situation long term, a multi-million dollar expansion project is in the works that will increase the size of UMC’s current emergency department by three times it’s current size.

That project will take another year to complete, so in the meantime hospital staff will have to work with what they have. “It’s always a minute by minute assessment,” says Ziemba. In some instances, priority in the trauma center comes at the expense of others. “The less-severe injuries or sicknesses that do come in tend to have longer wait times, and we’re hoping that expansion can also improve upon that,” she says.

Department of Public Safety officials say a tire blowout may have cause the initial rollover on Thursday morning. Several people remain hospitalized, but their conditions are not known.