WEBVTT 00:01.024 --> 00:04.806 - [Interviewer] How would you explain the environment 00:04.806 --> 00:08.973 when you first got there and then as things started rolling? 00:11.008 --> 00:13.034 You'd explained before that everyone started 00:13.034 --> 00:14.435 working together and really well. 00:14.435 --> 00:17.972 I mean, how did you personally deal with the emotions 00:17.972 --> 00:20.625 of yourself, the emotions of other people, patients? 00:20.625 --> 00:24.507 - Right, the environment down there was controlled chaos. 00:24.507 --> 00:27.118 There's no way that that cannot be chaotic, 00:27.118 --> 00:30.122 but the disaster response plan that they had in place 00:30.122 --> 00:32.759 down there for a mass casualty worked. 00:32.759 --> 00:36.926 At no point did I feel like our capacity was overwhelmed. 00:37.504 --> 00:39.957 We were completely in hand and tracking patients 00:39.957 --> 00:42.114 after they'd been initially assessed and able to follow up 00:42.114 --> 00:45.364 on them and recognize critical changes. 00:48.039 --> 00:51.243 The amazing capacity of all of the different disciplines 00:51.243 --> 00:53.247 within medicine to work together to take care 00:53.247 --> 00:54.981 of these patients, and as I said before, 00:54.981 --> 00:57.084 do some good in the face of this evil 00:57.084 --> 00:59.667 was like I'd never seen before. 01:00.566 --> 01:03.968 I don't think anybody could prepare for 100 patients, 01:03.968 --> 01:06.858 especially 100 patients with gunshot wounds that, 01:06.858 --> 01:09.608 until you can prove it otherwise, 01:09.891 --> 01:12.558 could die right in front of you. 01:14.497 --> 01:18.566 I think personally my training both in the Air Force 01:18.566 --> 01:21.909 and at Penn State University prepared me for that. 01:21.909 --> 01:24.010 Dealing with these type of patients 01:24.010 --> 01:28.177 on a much more controlled and lower volume allows you 01:30.139 --> 01:31.986 to scale it up, and you just fall back 01:31.986 --> 01:35.396 into your natural abilities, your muscle memory, 01:35.396 --> 01:38.259 the things that you know how to do. 01:38.259 --> 01:40.571 Then, when it's all said and done, you sit back 01:40.571 --> 01:43.248 and think about it, and I think, you know, now, 01:43.248 --> 01:45.948 almost 48 hours later, the gravity 01:45.948 --> 01:48.448 of the incident hasn't hit me. 01:48.989 --> 01:51.373 The thing that sticks with me is talking 01:51.373 --> 01:55.456 to these people, our patients, who had to witness 01:58.097 --> 02:00.930 a war zone on the Las Vegas Strip. 02:05.370 --> 02:09.537 - [Interviewer] What would you say to families, friends, 02:09.967 --> 02:13.066 and those who survived this in the aftermath 02:13.066 --> 02:16.483 of healing and what they should focus on? 02:18.980 --> 02:21.266 As Vegas should focus on, as a nation should focus on, 02:21.266 --> 02:25.433 what are things that you would pass along that you focus on? 02:26.017 --> 02:28.641 - I'll never stop being amazed by the immense capacity 02:28.641 --> 02:32.808 that our patients have to forgive us for the things 02:34.106 --> 02:37.750 we can't do and appreciate us for the things that we do do. 02:37.750 --> 02:39.826 We weren't able to save everybody. 02:39.826 --> 02:43.192 Their family members were still very grateful 02:43.192 --> 02:46.692 for the care that we were able to provide. 02:47.998 --> 02:51.248 Talking to many of the injured victims, 02:51.672 --> 02:55.839 I think that I would wish them first a speedy recovery, 02:57.989 --> 02:59.945 get them back home to their families, 02:59.945 --> 03:02.612 to the comfort of their own bed, 03:03.521 --> 03:07.354 but to know that the acts of one person aren't 03:10.240 --> 03:14.407 the acts of many, that one man did terrible things 03:14.636 --> 03:17.969 to almost 600 people, but, as we've seen 03:18.399 --> 03:22.339 in the days following, hundreds of people have done 03:22.339 --> 03:26.506 amazing things to help support us as providers and 03:26.900 --> 03:31.067 physicians and nurses, to help the families of the victims 03:32.074 --> 03:33.799 and our patients, to help our patients, 03:33.799 --> 03:37.632 to help keep us fed, them fed, transportation. 03:37.774 --> 03:41.941 The overwhelming amount of humanity that has been shown 03:42.947 --> 03:46.032 for the past 36 hours has been amazing, 03:46.032 --> 03:48.282 and I think that's what should carry them forward 03:48.282 --> 03:50.871 and that's what gonna carry me forward and what helps me 03:50.871 --> 03:53.933 get out of bed every day and do the job that I do. 03:53.933 --> 03:55.386 I think it's an immense honor 03:55.386 --> 03:57.102 to be able to take care of patients. 03:57.102 --> 04:01.185 As a physician, as a surgeon, I think having them 04:01.394 --> 04:04.490 and their families trust me to put them to sleep 04:04.490 --> 04:08.407 and operate on them is an honor and a privilege 04:10.801 --> 04:13.718 that words don't really do justice. 04:16.866 --> 04:19.784 - [Interviewer] What would you say was the, 04:19.784 --> 04:22.271 I guess, time of when it started? 04:22.271 --> 04:24.238 How long were you there? - Yeah. 04:24.238 --> 04:26.514 - How long was the work hours for? 04:26.514 --> 04:30.681 - Yeah, so the event started for me at almost 11:45, 04:35.167 --> 04:39.145 when we received the notification from Air Combat Command. 04:39.145 --> 04:42.062 I got downtown as quick as I could. 04:44.088 --> 04:46.985 I may have violated some traffic laws getting there, 04:46.985 --> 04:51.152 but knowing that I needed to take care of myself first 04:52.479 --> 04:54.229 and get there safely. 04:56.631 --> 04:59.647 When I arrived, I sort of lost track of time. 04:59.647 --> 05:03.814 Taking care of patients, the initial wave was finishing, 05:04.083 --> 05:05.758 and then it was clean-up, 05:05.758 --> 05:09.133 and then after that, about 3:00 AM the second wave came, 05:09.133 --> 05:12.164 where critically injured patients from smaller hospitals 05:12.164 --> 05:14.643 in the Valley that weren't able to take care of the capacity 05:14.643 --> 05:17.186 that they had started sending people to us. 05:17.186 --> 05:19.635 All along, the trauma center was taking 05:19.635 --> 05:22.567 other trauma patients that had been injured 05:22.567 --> 05:26.734 from completely unrelated events or had been trampled 05:27.875 --> 05:29.958 trying to flee the event. 05:31.850 --> 05:34.778 By about 7:00 in the morning, things had really slowed down. 05:34.778 --> 05:36.933 We had one trauma transfer coming in about that time, 05:36.933 --> 05:40.933 and we met as a team, all of the trauma surgeons 05:41.065 --> 05:43.766 that were there that night, the surgery residents, 05:43.766 --> 05:47.921 and the incoming team, and talked about the patients. 05:47.921 --> 05:51.165 All of our patients that predated the incident 05:51.165 --> 05:53.564 that we still had to render care for moving forward 05:53.564 --> 05:56.895 and that evening, in addition to the new, 05:56.895 --> 05:58.474 traumatically injured patients from the events 05:58.474 --> 06:00.974 of the evening of October 1st. 06:01.490 --> 06:04.907 So my day was pretty much a normal shift. 06:05.129 --> 06:07.799 I went in at 11, I went about midnight, 06:07.799 --> 06:10.384 and left about 8:30 in the morning. 06:10.384 --> 06:13.384 I hadn't slept the entire day before 06:13.504 --> 06:15.776 except for about an hour that I got from 9 PM 06:15.776 --> 06:19.193 to 10 PM when I woke up, but I went home, 06:21.106 --> 06:22.960 took a shower, and came back to work here 06:22.960 --> 06:26.066 at the 99th Med Group, continuing to do the things 06:26.066 --> 06:26.907 I need to do to take care 06:26.907 --> 06:30.281 of our active-duty airmen and their families. 06:30.281 --> 06:31.948 Then I went home to sleep. 06:31.948 --> 06:33.098 (laughs) 06:33.098 --> 06:37.265 - [Interviewer] Is there anything you'd like to add? 06:39.517 --> 06:42.767 - There's so much I want to talk about, 06:43.231 --> 06:46.064 but, like I said before, you know, 06:46.507 --> 06:48.424 this is all pretty new. 06:49.487 --> 06:52.312 I'm sure over the next coming days I'll think 06:52.312 --> 06:56.479 of more things, but I think the message that I want to send 07:00.492 --> 07:04.075 to the airmen here in the Air Force is that 07:05.057 --> 07:07.749 the doctors and nurses and medics that take care of you, 07:07.749 --> 07:11.218 we get these experiences in the civilian sector. 07:11.218 --> 07:14.736 Fortunately, places like here and our training 07:14.736 --> 07:18.336 keeps us ready to achieve the mission every day, 07:18.336 --> 07:22.503 operating on our active-duty airmen and their families. 07:23.287 --> 07:26.212 I think that it's an enormous privilege to be able to work 07:26.212 --> 07:29.629 with the SMART program downtown and UNLV. 07:31.772 --> 07:35.631 I'd also like to, the message I'd like to send to, 07:35.631 --> 07:38.548 I guess, the civilian population is 07:39.289 --> 07:43.456 centers like University Medical Center and the very close 07:45.173 --> 07:48.673 integration of military medical providers, 07:48.741 --> 07:50.584 it's a match made in heaven. 07:50.584 --> 07:54.167 It really is an awesome marriage of skills, 07:54.951 --> 07:59.118 mass casualty readiness skills, deployment experience, 07:59.240 --> 08:03.240 and the types of things that we don't always see 08:03.966 --> 08:07.877 in civilian medicine, and we're able to deliver that 08:07.877 --> 08:09.882 to the civilian population, to the taxpayers, 08:09.882 --> 08:13.715 who are also, you know, our secondary mission. 08:13.894 --> 08:16.842 I think the third message I'd like to send is to 08:16.842 --> 08:20.509 future physicians, people in medical school. 08:21.739 --> 08:24.646 Think about the military as an option. 08:24.646 --> 08:26.754 I trained in a civilian medical school 08:26.754 --> 08:29.752 and a civilian residency at Penn State University. 08:29.752 --> 08:32.095 I joined the Air Force and the experiences that I've gotten 08:32.095 --> 08:35.678 here and this experience is second to none. 08:35.841 --> 08:37.965 We have an Air Force residency program 08:37.965 --> 08:41.783 that is integrated with the UNLV surgery residency, 08:41.783 --> 08:43.683 and our surgery residents were there 08:43.683 --> 08:45.837 caring for these patients throughout the night 08:45.837 --> 08:47.935 and are currently caring for them. 08:47.935 --> 08:49.904 The experiences they're gonna get, 08:49.904 --> 08:52.508 they're gonna be able to take on, to care 08:52.508 --> 08:55.724 for active-duty airmen and their families, 08:55.724 --> 08:58.557 both at home station and deployed.