In the hours after the shooting massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, a picture of a surgeon’s blood-stained shoes sent a message of compassion and care.
Dr. Joshua Corsa posted a photo of his bloodstained shoes on Facebook, accompanied by an emotional message, and the post went viral with more than 275,000 shares.
The post was made after his shift at Orlando Regional Medical Center as he worked on more than 40 patients after the deadliest shooting in U.S. history, carried out by gunman Omar Mateen inside Pulse.
Forty-nine people were killed and more than 50 others were injured. Many of them were rushed to the trauma unit.
>> Read more about the Orlando nightclub shooting
Some of the staff didn’t even have time to grab a gown or booties because the patients needed them immediately.
A photo of a surgeon’s bloodstained shoes represents the faces he remembers, even the ones that are a blur.
“I don’t know who they are and it doesn’t matter. It encapsulated all the terrible things that happened, but again, all the good work we did as well,” Corsa said.
Along with the photo, he wrote about the patients he treated Sunday morning, saying, “I don’t know which were straight, which were gay, which were black, or which were Hispanic. What I do know is they came to us in wave upon wave of suffering, screaming and death. And somehow, in that chaos, doctors, nurses, technicians, police, paramedics, and others, performed super human feats of compassion and care.””
The trauma unit inside ORMC saw more than 40 patients.
“I pushed open the door. The patients were there. The least of my concerns at that point was protecting my shoes,” he said.
Ambulance after ambulance arrived to the hospital that morning, and behind the doors was an entire team in the trauma unit, including supervisor Dr. Chadwick Smith, Dr. Nicholas Sakis and Dr. Shalini Golla.
“I definitely had some tears that night and, but then you realize, there are more people that need you,” Golla, a first-year resident, said.
Corsa said the team is now focused on getting the patients back to their families and lives.
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