tonight on "nightline," life or death. inside america's busiest trauma center on an action-packed summer night as doctors put it all on the line. patients fight for survival. and a hospital is pushed to the brink. strange brew. diplomacy on tap at a high profile drinkup as the president welcomes a professor and a police officer, but does the beer diplomacy really deserve this buzz? plus, outspoken pop star, all-around good time girl, we hit the road with lilly allen,

all the revealing moments in the new series "on the town". captions paid for by abc, inc. good evening. i'm terry moran. perhaps never has a meetup over beers generated so much talk and talk and talk. but at the white house this evening, there they were, the president, the professor and the police officer clinking frosty mugs during a cordial photo-op. the three key players in a national controversy about race and policing. and while there may have been no apologies for the bitter standoff two weeks ago, leave it to cold beer to take the edge off, at least for a moment. as senior white house correspondent jake tapper reports. >> for the most famous beer hoisting since john belushi donned a toga, the beers with

the professor, joe biden, the president and sergeant crowley was somewhat anticlimactic. in the less than two minutes that we were out there, professor gates and sergeant crowley did almost all the talking. i dit not -- it did not appear chummy, but the professor says that the sergeant racially profiled him and owes him an apology. it was not a lowenbrau moment. >> the last time we were here we made history. >> this evening crowley said no one apologized at the meeting but called it frank, private and cordial and lacking in tension. >> this was a positive step in moving forward. i think what you had today was two gentlemen agree to disagree on a particular issue. >> was it a teachable moment as the president said he hoped it to become? >> what have i learned from

this? i learned that the media can find you no matter where you live. >> crowley arrested gates in his own home for disorderly conduct and gates accused crowley of racial profiling. but it reached a whole new level when president obama during a press conference on health care was asked for his thoughts on the matter and well, through out an adverb he soon regretted. >> the cambridge police acted stupidly. >> after police groups began protesting, the president's choosing sides, mr. obama backed off. saying both sides had overreacted. >> i could have calibrated those words differently. my hope is as a consequence of this event, this ends up being what's called a teachable moment. >> but the news of the men having a beer together tonight did not calm things down in this wild media world. >> tonight is the beer summit. >> 6:00 p.m. eastern time is show time, you might say. >> just three guys going to have some cold beer.

>> this bud's for you. >> i have to say, i'm fascinated with the fascination about this evening. as you know, this idea was prompted when i was talking to sergeant crowley and he said, well, maybe i'll have a beer in the white house some day. i said, well, you know, i'm sure that can be arranged. >> it was called the coalition of the swilling. beer-astroika. and the beer summit. >> a clever term, but this not a summit, guys. this three folks -- this is three folks having a drink at the end of the day. and hopefully, giving people an opportunity to listen to each other. and that's really all it is. >> i think beer is the perfect drink for a white house summit, meeting of any time. it gets people relaxed, fun to drink and hey, it makes us feel good.

ben franklin said beer god's proof that he wants us to be happy. >> beer is a casual regular guy-ness. whether on the campaign trail. or hanging out with some fellow world leaders. or trying to rectify an uncomfortable incident. >> well, there were two larger men, one was kind of hispanic, but i'm not kind of sure. the other one entered and i didn't see what he looked like at all. >> "chicago sun-times" and politics daily columnist lynn swede is the one who prompted the president to involve himself in this issue. >> recently, professor gates was arrested in his home and what does it say to you and race in america? >> what does swede think? >> president obama thought he had a responsibility to address this episode since he in the sense was responsible, as he

said, for ratcheting up the rhetoric on it. i think he wanted to show that you can try and have a conversation over some tough issues. >> this evening, crowley said he and gates will continue trying to address this. they have planned another meeting to continue the dialogue. this one private and likely nonalcoholic. maybe a kool-aid or ice tea next time he said. this is jake tapper for "nightline" at the white house. >> so time to move forward. cheers to that for that. thanks to jake tapper. when we come back, we'll turn to the trauma of emergency medicine and go to the nation's busiest trauma center.

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the national fight over healthcare reform has raged throughout the summer and it's expected to continue well into the fall. at the same time there is a real life public health crisis

threatening one of america's largest cities. it's place that's expensive to operate, never closes. where the staff is stretched thin and where there is seldom time to ask for a patient's insurance card. it's the nation's busiest trauma center. our cameras were there and we want to warn you, this footage may be upsetting to some viewers. ryan owens has tonight's report. >> it's just before midnight saturday night. in the busiest trauma center in the united states, this is primetime. patients are already stacked up in the hall when two young boys are wheeled in. >> they were both ejected. >> the bays aged 2 and 5 were found lying on the side of a houston street. they had been thrown from this car when it slammed into a tree. >> okay.

>> the 5-year-old may not make it. he's bleeding from the head. the 2-year-old's injuries aren't as bad, but you wouldn't know it from his screams. do you ever get used to it when it's kids? >> no kids is always tough because i have a daughter. and there's times when i call my wife to wake her up to make sure she's okay. >> across the hall, a 6-year-old may have to have his foot amputated. he was riding with his father on an atv. they crashed into a fence and the vehicle flipped on top of the boy, crushing his lower leg. dr. james mccarthy is part of the team trying to stabilize the child and save his leg. he runs this emergency room and says it's like this almost every night. >> it gets busy enough it's standing room only. there are no extra seats, shuffling patients around to get them into the areas they need to be. there's the problem of too busy. you get busy enough that we

become saturated and no longer have the capacity to continue to take care of everybody. that's a real risk in houston right now. >> houston has roughly 5 million people. it has just two level one trauma centers. that's the place you need to go when you're critically injured. most cities this size have five or six such trauma centers. the american college of surgeons says you should have one for every million in population. here, it's not even close. you have eight emergency bays like this one. it's not at all unusual to have them all full? >> there are many days if you don't get to be on a ventilator, everything else is managed in the hallway outside. >> why is this trauma center so overloaded? much of it can be blamed on hurricane ike. last september, the storm dealt a punishing blow to galveston, an island community about an hour south of houston.

galveston was home to this area's third level one trauma center. ike devastated it. and nearly a year later, it's still closed. almost immediately, trauma admissions at memorial hermann texas medical center shot up 30% and they stayed that way. this hospital has struggled to keep up mostly from the air. >> how much more full are you now than before hurricane ike? >> i would say -- [ inaudible ]. >> life flight memorial hermann's air ambulance service now flies to and from galveston on daily basis. we were along for one ride as life flight picked up an assault victim. this time last year he was an ambulance ride away from the trauma center. today, it's a far longer helicopter ride up to houston. >> the worst thing is, people that would be surviving because of the -- just the transport time is definitely -- i think

there's a significant loss of life. but they're doing the best they can. >> it's another reason this trauma center is so busy. remarkably, memorial hermann is the only trauma center in houston with a helipad. from as far as 150 miles away the choppers all land here, 24 hours a day. on the one saturday we visited, life flight alone landed 30 times. >> one hour -- >> this doctor isn't talking about a patient. he's talking about his wife. >> are you allergic to any medicine? >> the frantic pace doesn't allow the soon to be dad much time to attend to his wife, even though she's in labor. >> that's part of life. >> she understands. >> this trauma center gets so packed, it often goes on what's called diversion. that means it just can't handle any more patients. when we met trauma surgeon john

holecomb, he said they have been on diversion for the last 28 hours. >> it's a public health crisis in houston. when we're this busy and we go on diversion and we're full like we are right now, people spend 24 hours in the emergency center waiting for an icu bed. mortality in houston goes up. >> just because there's no place to put them? >> no place to put them. there's no place for really sick people to go. >> the colonel was in the army before he started at this hospital. 13 days before ike hit. he says since then, the trauma center is on diversion between 25 and 40% of the time. >> too full. >> with so many patients in need, why aren't more trauma centers opening? you might have guessed by now, it's money. a trauma center deals in life and death and there's no time to ask for an insurance card. and trauma is expensive. >> trauma does not pay as well as cardiac care.

so you're a ceo of a smaller hospital, you have the opportunity to get into -- you want to take care of trauma patients or do you want to take care of heart attack patients? the cfo's will tell you the heart attack patients are a much better bet. >> nobody is rushing to get into the trauma business? >> no, not at all. >> still, these doctors and nurses will tell you it's rewarding work and they do manage miracles on a near daily basis. remember those two young boys ejected from the car? one is home. one is expected to leave the hospital soon. and the 6-year-old whose leg was crushed by his dad's atv, vascular surgeons reattached the blood vessels in the leg and saved his foot. oh, and this doctor has a baby girl now and he was there with his wife when she delivered a few hours after his shift ended.

but at the country's busiest trauma center, there isn't much time to celebrate. there is it seems always someone in need headed their way. and too often, not a place to put them. take it from those who know emergencies, america's fourth largest city is in one. i'm ryan owens for "nightline" in houston. >> incredible stories from another night inside the nation's busiest trauma center. our thanks to ryan owens for that extraordinary report. when we come back, entertainment. a performer who is guaranteed to make you smile. we're on the town with pop star lilly allen. (announcer) .it's that time of year again they're going back it's back to school timeat staples over 7000 supplies at guaranteed low prices

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her lyrics are brutally honest, even nasty and her style befitting that of a 20-something english pop star, not surprisingly this young musician is having a lot of fun with fame. except perhaps for the paparazzi on her tail.

you never quite know what's going to happen. so we joined her. dan harris now with lilly allen in her new series, "on the town". ♪ >> it's early on a saturday evening and i'm squeezed into the back seat of a compact car rolling through the streets of philadelphia, sandwiched between an enormous bodyguard and lilly allen. a fixture in the gossip rags and singer of global pop hits like "littlest things" who has become the paparazzi-hounded poster child for a generation of exhibitioni exhibitionists, young people who share intimate details of their lives with anyone who will listen. ♪ i want to be rich and i want lots of money ♪ ♪ i don't care about clever, i don't care about funny ♪ >> the reason we're packed into the little car is because we're doing a twitter hunt. before every show, allen hides tickets around whatever town she's in and sends out clues to her million-plus followers on

twitter. >> twitter. >> that was quick. that was a minute. lesshan a minute. this has become such a hit that when we show up at the love statue, there are already fans here before any clues have been sent out. >> all right, calm down. i've got -- i can't hide the tickets now. >> okay. >> allen gives her tickets and backstage passes and we hit the road to spend a few days with allen. >> let's make her welcome, ms. lilly allen. ♪ >> where we find that the core of her enormous popularity appears to be her astonishing honesty.

this guy "not fair" is about a guy she likes who isn't good in bed. ♪ do you think it would be justifiable for somebody to worry about getting in a relationship with you because they could then end up in a song? >> no. guys can be a little bit scared. ♪ >> lilly allen who's 24 became an overnight star in 2006 with a debut album of poppy, provocative songs like "smile". and a myspace blog where she openly discussed her insecurities about her looks and weight and also dissed other celebrities. it's not just allen's path that inspires such a loyal following, but also her vulnerability. she sings about being hurt by

her lovers and by her father, an actor who left home when she was about 4. ♪ you used the word contradictory, and you toggle back and forth between sometimes being sort of the wounded lover and sometimes being incredibly cynical. >> yeah. but that's who i am. as a person, you know? i like to go around -- i'm one of the most confident person -- i really stand up for myself and female empowerment and whatever. i'm realistic. i'm like, look after me, be nice to me. so, yeah. but that's real. that's how i feel. ♪ >> allen's lifestyle including her hard partying she frequently complained of being ragged during our twitter hunt -- i can see how it's fun. >> it's real fun with hangover. >> has created something of a

tabloid frenzy. one that got so out of control that allen took the british media to court and got a restraining order. >> i walk down the street and there would be 10 or 20 men with cameras walking two feet in front of me. that's not nice and that's not -- i don't think any human being should be able to say enough is enough. i thought that was enough. >> she insists that her ultimate goal is to have no one caring much about her at all. >> i was really struck by something you said the other night which is you don't see yourself doing this forever. >> no. not at all. i'm not really under any sort of, you know, pretense that i s it's -- it's going to last. or that i'm owed it or i really want it. i want to do other things. i want to do charity work in africa or get married and have children. >> you think it's entirely possible that lilly allen, pop

star, becomes lilly allen, suburban mom? >> yeah. i have every intention of becoming a suburban mom. >> as one door closes, another one opens, she sings. for now however she remains a mouthy and unrepentant star. i'm dan harris in new york. >> lilly allen, suburban mom. might be a while. when we come back, the cash for clunkers program is screeching to halt. that's the subject of tonight's "closing argument."