After 3 a.m., he says he's typically among five or six nurses for both the adult and pediatric emergency rooms, where one serious trauma patient can require three nurses. Those nurses, in turn, may not get back to their other patients for an hour or two, he said. When one nurse has to assess incoming patients for both rooms - say, because of a big car accident - someone walking in with a serious condition could wait 20 minutes to be seen at all, he said.