Dr. Ron Jensen was at home watching television when the newsflash cut in, reporting that there had been a massive shooting in downtown Dallas. It happened at the tail end of what was supposed to be a peaceful rally.
Dr. Alan Jones was already on duty at the Baylor University Medical Center, but visions of 9/11 – or at least the trauma he witnessed – flashed before him as he prepared for a wave of wounded police officers.
Nurse Sherry Sutton wanted to know where her husband was. He is a veteran of the Dallas Police Department.
“We didn’t know if this was an isolated event or if this was another Orlando,” said Jensen, the head of emergency medicine at Baylor, a level-one trauma center where many of the wounded were taken. “ … We had no idea if we were getting five more or 40.”
Less than a month after 49 people were killed and scores more were injured in an Orlando nightclub – in what is regarded as one of the worst mass shootings in modern American history – hospitals across Dallas found themselves preparing.
Five people, all police officers, died, in what doctors at Baylor are calling “controlled chaos.”
“It was horrific,” Sutton said. “And we didn’t know what was going to happen next. Just like in Orlando, we had to make sure we had the tools and knowledge to do our jobs. So it becomes second nature. This team shined.”
Jensen said by the time he arrived at the hospital, the staff was already there.
None of them had been called.
“We have drills, so everybody just showed up and did what they were supposed to do,” said Jones, the director of orthopedic trauma surgery at the hospital. “When you realize that it is not a drill, that is when instincts kick in.”
Jensen said the hospital constantly studies disasters, from Orlando to Hurricane Katrina to Midwestern tornadoes, to prepare.
“We studied Orlando, but we never saw anything like this happening here,” Jensen said. “But we were ready.”
Jones has seen things like this before.
He has worked plane crashes. He was part of a trauma unit in Baltimore during the September 11 attacks, so he witnessed the trauma of the Pentagon attack in Washington, D.C.
“The hardest part about last night, was the dozens of officers standing by,” Jones said. “The looks on their faces. You know what that look is and you know what they are facing.”
Sutton, the nurse manager of the emergency department, recognized those faces.
“Those were my husband’s guys,” she said, about the officers watching. “I knew them all.”
She said her husband was on duty Thursday night, but was not injured.
“I don’t think this is something you can shake,” she said.
On Friday night, ambulances lined the ER door of Baylor. But it was quiet, unlike a night earlier.
“It is absolutely horrific what we are doing to each other as a society,” Jensen said, in what could be considered a rare piece of candor from an official in a situation like this. “It is a shame that a group, because of race, religion or lifestyle feels that they are so disenfranchised that the only way they feel they can be heard is to harm officers. We all need to take a deep breath and learn to love one another.”
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