I was a young doctor working at Sacred Heart Hospital in Eugene on what started off like any other day, until I was told to get down to the ER immediately. Shooting victims were coming. A lot of them. All kids. They had been shot at school. This was 1998. The idea of so many kids shot at school was unfathomable. The staff waited in stunned silence. Soon, we could hear sirens approaching.
The first ambulance arrived with a girl who had a gunshot wound to the head. The EMTs hadn't even been able to place an IV. None of us thought she could survive, but we did everything we could. And somehow, we saved her. By then, the second victim arrived. Then the third. Then many more. My colleagues and I were caring for kids who looked like they were coming from a war zone. Not from what should have been a normal spring day at school. And there were kids we couldn't save.