Doctors who treated Walmart mass shooting victims speak

And all the worst traumas in Hampton Roads come here like they did last night, so we also have with us one of our nurse leaders from the emergency department where these traumas arrive and then two other nurse leaders from our burn trauma unit, yeah my last one my name is Hooper h-o-o-p-e-r uh h-o-o-p-e-r-one-p Michael m-i-c-h-a-e-l I'm vice president and chief medical officer of Sentara Norfolk General Hospital when you're ready to start go ahead guys you can ask questions but we don't have anything prepared. Okay, when did you arrive last night and what was the scene like when you walked in, so he wasn't on site last night?

We had an administrator on call and a vice president on call who were taking calls about the incident and then we had multiple trauma surgeons and education leaders and education staff who arrived while the event was going on, the hospital was briefly closed for any type of event like this when there is a

mass

casualty and we have very little data in terms of what is happening, why it is happening and we do it until we are sure that there was no imminent threat to anyone in the building we were locked in, that it's correct since launch, we have two, um, two died, two crits, one is fine, the stats remain the same at this time. state we have two people who died unfortunately we have two in our Intensive Care Unit in critical condition and then one patient who is in good condition.

I can't share details about a patient, but I hope her family was able to. share something about how you're doing, yes, we have a huge staff of over 3,000 employees and then hundreds of

doctors

on our medical staff. We are a level one trauma center and, like, Mr. Gauding said we've been at that status for quite some time. some time and that means having many specialists Specialists on call for the hospital, a very dedicated trauma team for 24/7 coverage and unfortunately we deal with events like this very frequently, violence of various types in the community, so our teams are very prepared.

To deal with this type of event, do you have any updates, uh, details that you can provide on the two that are in critical condition right now. You know, maybe where they were shot or something. I can't share any of that. information at this time, but I'm sorry, the last time we had a press conference similar to this was with the Virginia Beach

mass

shooting

, we're here again. I guess in your mind, as a medical director, it would be very obvious with the health system or the hospital, you know, what goes through our mind is how can we be prepared for this.

I think as a human being, as a parent, as a family member of many people, my thinking is focused on how we, as a community, prevent these types of things from happening. happening so this doesn't happen in the first place um so those are the thoughts that are going through my mind it was also happening avenues for mental trauma application ceremonies right now um so um there are a number of resources available for patients and families So we have a chaplaincy team that has been on site since very early this morning working with families or working directly with patients.

Obviously we have mental health services in the hospital, including a psychiatry if necessary for any of the patients and then there are a number of Community Resources that we can connect people to as they transition out of the hospital because obviously it is a serious event that it changes their lives. What resources are available for healthcare workers, nurses and staff who have to suffer such terrible accidents? So we have a number of resources available we have an employee assistance program that has a therapist on call 24/7 for this type of crisis, if someone needs to access that type of care, obviously, as leaders At the hospital, we try to talk to the people who are having it to review this report with them and determine if there are specific resources they may need.

Our chaplaincy service that I talked about earlier also works with our employees to try to make sure that we know when, when, when it's been too much the one thing. We want the community to know this in light of this tragedy on your side. Well, I think the community needs to know that they have a great hospital with tons of great people who really work tirelessly to be prepared for these types of situations. events, so that's kind of comforting, but I think we would all like to not have to do this, not have to deal with these types of issues and anything that the community can do to help us prevent gun violence or violence from any kind.

We would love for all of us to come together to do that, we put Dr. Burgess on, it's ready. Dr. Burgess was here on site last night, she came in to fill in when the assistant, you know, was busy, so Scrabble goes on, okay, yeah, again, my name. is Jessica Burgess I'm one of the critical care surgeons here at Eastern Virginia Medical School at Sentara Norfolk General I was the backup person on call last night and a partner called me when we got reports that there was a mass casualty incident. So I kind of enacted our emergency plan to involve other people, other surgeons, other surgical residents, the operating room staff, so that we would be prepared for as many casualties as we could have.

I understand you know when you're in that mode. You're thinking very logically, strategically, um, but as a person, just what was going through your mind, uh, you just realized what would happen, sure, um, you know, certainly, as a surgeon, this is what That, this is what I love, is caring. of people and being able to be there in these types of situations and being able to help people when you know they need it the most, certainly as a parent and a spouse and just as a member of this community, um, it's heartbreaking, just two days ago I reached out I reached out to one of my colleagues in Colorado Springs to wish her well and see how she was doing after caring for

shooting

victims

, so it's very disheartening that she's now in the same position with my colleagues across the country checking on me. and our team, so it's discouraging and it's hard when sometimes you know there's only so much we can do after the injuries are done.

You have enough beds for patients last night, but they know that there were initially reported to be five being cared for and then they found out that one might have been at a different hospital, so could you help fill in the blanks of what it happened there for sure so we drill for this kind of stuff on a regular basis especially you know with the recent covid pandemic. Hospital capacity is always a big issue at the forefront, but this is something we drill down on a regular basis, so we were immediately able to make ICU bed operating rooms available.

We had staff calling to see how they could help and we had several different teams of people, so we were able to see more patients than we received. Please spell your last name. we are sure it is a Burgess b-u-r-g-e-s-s. I am a critical care surgeon and associate professor at Eastern Virginia School of Medicine. She, you know, I think um, obviously, it's the dust settling. You start to think about it more. We had a debriefing session after the chaplains were present. We have had several people, Dr. Hooper and the Administration, reach out to see how we are doing.

We have received multiple communications from both Eastern Virginia School of Medicine and Centerra, who have reached out to different mental health resources, so I think you already know this is what I want to do this is where we want to be so we are proud of what we did last night. I don't think I could be prouder of the team we formed together, of how people came from nowhere to be here. and I don't think our team could have done a better job and again I'm proud of what we did, but again it's a lot to process.

You know, these are people in our community whose lives were cut short the day before Thanksgiving. It's heartbreaking, we know we just spoke to Mr. Jones' mother, has she been in contact with any of the other

victims

' families and how are they doing um? Yeah, I can't really talk about that, but we, yeah, we're taking care of them and in touch, yeah, okay, Tracy Tracy is on deck Tracy Chandler manages the burn trauma unit in the ICU where our patients are and this is part of it. on your team, and Rachel, she's one of the team coordinators in the emergency department, so you guys get closer. on the microphone, yes, absolutely perfect, Amy, do you want to introduce yourself and my name is Amy sokolowski.

I'm the basket ICU and burn trauma nurse for this, but when it really happens, what's going through your mind, I know you have to take action. I'm sure you're all doing well and doing the best you can, but on some level we all know it's heartbreaking, but I guess what you need is to move forward as leaders of the emergency department. To Dr. Burgess' point, we train for this as leaders, charge nurses, and Sometimes the nursing staff is constantly thinking about being one step ahead if I need to get this critical patient out of this room right now when they call. to the trauma alert, who's my first out and that's exactly what the team, we had our places that we keep loose and agile so that if we need to get someone out we can do it right away and then they did exactly that, they responded quickly, they got the stretches in the right places, they designated where the team needed to go, we have a board to help direct traffic as things arrive because it can be a little chaotic and it really takes good clear communication to make sure everyone knows what is its function and where the patient needs it. go and then think about what the next step is.

Where do we go after this? Shall we go to Diagnostics? Do we partner with our ICU team and put a bed up or do we go right to the or and we're honking? Can you describe what some of these families were going through or what you may have heard or seen from their loved ones who came to check on some of their loved ones? The disheartening thing is that it happened. and when we don't have all the answers at that moment, it's hard to be able to communicate as best we can, so we rely heavily on our chaplaincy services, we rely heavily on coordinating with the floors, taking information to try to identify it. . spokesperson so that when we have the information to provide we can pass it on to people, we have weak areas where it is a pseudo-reunification area, if we have the capacity to support it, that is in our waiting area and our chaplaincy service is really good. connect the family with the information when they have it and it's available in a situation like this it's very important to get that information so that as the information comes in we can connect the dots for them we understand that gun violence is prevalent everywhere the country. um Norfolk, all of Hampton Roads is no stranger to this uh you know, it gets exhausting to see the um throughout the city and area yeah, um, it's always disheartening when you see unnecessary violence at this level um, we have a lot of resources for our staff because some of these situations strike a chord with you, but during that moment I will say that our teams are doing very well, you know, coming together to support each other, our unit has personally suffered our own personal tragedies in the last year and a half, so We have, you know, not a gun violence tragedy, let me clarify that, but you know, we do very well by sticking together and helping each other last night.

The team did an incredible job moving patients so we can make room for these patients who are just like them. Upon entering, they kept in contact with me. You know I'm always on standby if you need Amy. My specialist nurse is always on standby if we need help. Our direct subordinate. Our director. She is always very willing to come and you know, it helps yes. We need it, so one of the things that we consider very important is that Dr. Burr just mentioned the report and we have found significant value in taking that pause, whether it is the senseless act of a mass casualty incident or the code what's going on.

It was not expected or you know another act of violence and we take that break and we talk about what went very well and where we want to take our program and it is very good, a lot of good has gone out. of this, the spellings t-r-a-c-e-y and Chandler c-h-a-n-d-l-e-r clinical nurse manager and it's Rachel e l hoovenin h-u-o-v-i-n-e-n and your foreign emergency department team coordinator and I'm the burn trauma nurse and vascular ICU Les last night early this morning the trauma of thebarn is a unit so yes we received some of the victims yes Intensive Care Unit yes ma'am Burns from traumatic injuries wow so you guys were here last night you're still here no, I wasn't here last night okay, I wasn't here last night Yes, everyone is well, thank you for coming, thank you, thank you, ladies, you had just listened to the officials from Sentara Norfolk General Hospital talking about what they did last night.

They're a level one trauma center, but before we talk about what they just said, we have. To bring you some breaking news, Walmart just confirmed the name of the shooter. Andre was with us. They said he had been working there since 2010. He was the team leader for the night. This just hit our newsroom and we'll be following the story all day. Just so you know a few things, maybe if you got to this last level, a lot of officials said they were ready for an event like this, they were prepared, but they just didn't want to have to be Ashley.

You know, Sentara Norfolk. General uh answering some questions there. Many times you think about the families and you think about the loved ones of the victims, you think about the customers inside the store, but we must remember that this is also very hard for our medical professionals. I mean, we just heard some stories of, you know, the doctor talking about how you know. Last week she was checking on a colleague and now her colleagues are checking on her, so it's also taking a toll on the medical community. We know that five of the victims were sent to Sentara Norfolk General, a trauma center.

We know that two. two died are in critical condition and one is in good condition as of last check and that's just at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. We also have other victims at Chesapeake Regional and you know which doctor I was talking about, Dr. Burgess, that person I was calling.