Would young people wielding guns in Erie think twice about the physical and emotional damage they are inflicting on their families and friends — as well as the dangers they impose upon themselves — if they had a firsthand view of a hospital trauma team working to save a shooting victim’s life?

In Philadelphia, teenagers watch in silence as a young man volunteers to lie down on a stretcher at Temple University Hospital. After the teenager is in place, a trauma surgeon matter-of-factly explains that this is the same stretcher where doctors scrambled to treat Lamont Adams after he was shot more than a dozen times outside his grandmother’s house.

The trauma doctor shows where the bullets hit the teenager, who was known for his bright smile and sense of humor. Now he is remembered as one of Philadelphia’s many victims of gun violence. Shortly after being rushed to the emergency room, he died, three months before his 17th birthday

His grandmother, Jenny Clark, did not want Lamont’s death to be in vain. She cooperated with Temple University to help create Cradle to Grave, which tells Lamont’s story and lets young people step into his shoes by lying down on that hospital stretcher. ...

In Philadelphia, gun wounds are so common that several years ago, the Philadelphia Daily News reported that military doctors came to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania to learn better methods to care for wounded soldiers. “It’s a little sad that my hometown is proving to be an urban battlefield,” Dr. Pat Riley, the hospital’s chief of trauma, said at the time.

Of nine homicide victims in the city of Erie in 2014, eight were shot, including Tyshaun Thrower, 20. He was killed Oct. 24 at East 22nd and Holland streets. Many more people are treated at local hospitals for gunshot wounds that harden their youthful hearts and break the hearts of their loved ones.