We call them “mass casualty incidents.”
An alert goes out through pagers and cell phones.
We seldom get the details of the situation up front—
just the nature of injuries and the number of patients to expect.
We’re typically piecing things together as the patients roll in.
There’s panic, yes, but there’s also determination and an unwavering desire to help.
I don’t think anyone really wants to be there during a mass casualty incident,
but if you’re there, you do whatever you can to serve and help and heal.

Four years ago today, when a gunman opened fire at a video game tournament at the Jacksonville Landing, I was working at an area hospital as part of the response team. As the stretchers rolled in, I made phone calls to families to let them know their loved ones were with us, and I contacted other chaplains to make sure our hospital had the coverage it needed as friends of survivors showed up to our doors. Legally, I couldn’t give family members medical updates, but I was able to relay messages from wounded survivors so their loved ones would know they were at the very least alive.

With my calls placed, I headed back to the emergency room, which buzzed with a frenetic energy as the medical team worked. Eventually, having tended wounds and stabilized vitals, the doctors and nurses stepped aside, and I found myself standing in the trauma bay surrounded by the survivors. We dimmed the lights as our patients talked to each other, and I did my best to comfort them. I remember being struck by how much these people looked and sounded like me. After all, video games are one of my de-stressors of choice. I quickly found myself thinking, “These are my people. This is the kind of place I might have been. It’s easy to imagine lying in one of these stretchers myself because of a man who never should have had access to a gun in the first place.”

For months after that, whenever I went to any kind of big event, I found myself observing potential vantage points a shooter might use, and I took note of any good hiding spots just in case. Honestly, I still do this from time to time.

I went to counseling for secondary trauma. After all, while I hadn’t been there at the Landing, I was there as the survivors recounted the events and worried about one another and themselves. I talked to a lot of very scared family members by phone. I saw the gunshot wounds with my own eyes. And I remember the feeling of helplessness as I helped the survivors start processing what they had experienced.

In a strange twist, I’m also where I am today because of this event. Prompted by our team’s efficient and compassionate response to the shooting, my supervisor pulled me aside a few days later and encouraged me to complete my chaplaincy education so I could pursue full-time trauma chaplaincy. Though I obviously wish this event had never occurred, I’m a pediatric trauma/ICU chaplain in part because of the events of that day.

The Landing closed within a year and has since been demolished. Though the shooter himself wasn’t even from Jacksonville, the incident made the already-struggling venue feel that much less safe. An open-air green space lies where the Landing once stood, and city officials still debate what should be done with the property.

There has been little significant change to the laws that allowed the shooter to obtain his guns. In fact, gun laws remain as hotly debated a subject as ever, as half our political system remains content to sacrifice thousands of lives every year on the altar of gun rights. If the massacres of children at Sandy Hook and Uvalde couldn’t generate real substantive change, I’m not sure what will, but I have to hope.

Personally, I maintain my commitment never to own a gun. Lethal weapons can too easily be stolen or turned against their owners, not to mention the astronomically higher rates of suicide among gun owners. I’m far safer not having one at all, and I continue to hope our country will come to its senses on this topic.

I’ve always known these events were unfathomable, but working in the trauma bay that day made the whole phenomenon of American gun violence that much more real to me. I’ve never been very pro-gun, but seeing the damage these weapons do up close and personal has further sold me on tightening gun laws (and if you’d like to donate to a group working on this, click here).

I know we’re in a fallen world, but it still doesn’t have to be this way.
It doesn’t have to be this bad. It doesn’t have to be this violent.
Why have our imaginations become so limited on this particular issue?
I have to believe this world can change.

In the meantime, stay safe out there.