What will it take for things to change?
By Lynda Pond
In 1998, the community of Springfield, Ore., made headlines across the nation, when Kip Kinkle, a 15-year-old student at Thurston High School, shot and killed his father, Bill Kinkle.
I had known Bill Kinkle for two years.
He was my Spanish teacher and a well-respected person in the community. After killing his father, Kip then went into the garage and shot his mother in the back, killing her immediately.
I heard about their deaths as I was driving to work. When I arrived at the hospital, I learned that Kip was in the school cafeteria at Thurston High, and the police had not yet secured the area.
As the morning unfolded, we learned that Kip had finally been stopped, not by the police, but by six students, two of whom were the sons of my friend and co-worker who was on shift with me at the time. These brave young men tackled Kip as he was firing at their classmates, bringing him to the ground and sitting on him until the police arrived.
We spent our morning transfixed as we continued to hear from our colleagues working in the emergency room about the students who had been shot and critically injured.
Many of the students were taken to surgery immediately. One of the students had lost so much blood from the bullet wounds to his leg that the decision was made to operate on him in the emergency room because there was not enough time to take him to surgery.
The entire hospital staff was activated to provide care for these patients and their families. It took several hours for the full scope of Kip’s actions to become clear.
Rumors and the media being what they are, we didn’t learn until late in the afternoon that Kip had killed not only his parents, but also two of his classmates and injured 25 others. Students in that cafeteria hid under tables and pretended to be dead in order to survive.
Kip’s actions, the first such mass shooting incident to occur in this country impacted every care provider who touched those patients as well as the entire communities of Eugene and Springfield. The following year, the nation was shocked again, when the Columbine shootings happened.
Politicians and community members were both outraged. They went to the affected communities, said prayers, and made strong promises to make changes to prevent this from happening again. Nonetheless, the shootings continue and have become a daily occurrence.
In 2006, someone opened fire on the Umpqua Community College campus in Roseburg, Ore., 60 miles south of Eugene. Several of the shooting victims were transferred to Sacred Heart. Our team activated once more and did what they do best: They saved people’s lives.
I was in the cafeteria at the end of the day when the anesthesiologist who had saved the life of the young man who had been too critical to move to surgery 14 years before sat down with me. We talked about the impact of having to treat Roseburg patients, and he told me, with tears in his eyes, “I never dreamed I’d have to do this again. What will it take for things to change?”
Every day, our country’s health professionals treat patients who have been injured by firearms — whether in emergency rooms, mental health and psychiatric facilities, or specialty care settings.
Our work includes dealing with the injuries, deaths, and the enduring trauma caused by gun violence on patients, families and communities.
As with so many traumatic events in our communities, healthcare professionals are called upon to assist witnesses and survivors in dealing with the mental and emotional fallout. In the aftermath of violent incidents, healthcare professionals play an important role.
We are called upon to address public health issues such as smoking cessation for cancer prevention, infant mortality prevention by educating new parents on how to position a sleeping infant, and even the use of seat belts to prevent deadly motor vehicle accidents.
Aside from the undeniable link between social determinants of health and the cycle of gun violence in our communities, our firsthand accounts of treating victims, survivors, and families make health professionals an important stakeholder for helping identify effective strategies to reduce the incidence of gun violence and promote safety measures in gun-owning households.
It isn’t just about what happens in our hospitals, ambulances or other places where victims of gun violence take their last breath, it is also about how we can stop this epidemic.
Efforts by special interests to sideline our voices often choose to ignore the impact of gun violence on us when caring for victims who are our patients. The psychological impact is stark and lasting.
Beyond that, gun violence places strain on our healthcare system by diverting resources from other critically ill patients and by the over $1 billion in hospital costs alone for initial gun care injury, a majority of which is paid for through public health coverage.
I’d like to conclude by saying that I know some of the students who were in the cafeteria on the day Kip opened fire. While their bodies were unharmed, their souls were not. These amazing adults today have severe post-traumatic stress disorder, which is accompanied by strong survivor’s guilt in some cases. Every time a mass murder occurs, they relive their trauma. They are not alone. Every community affected by these events suffers. The nurses, doctors, anesthesiologists, social workers and ministries who care for mass shooting victims suffer. Day after day, year after year, the traumas resurface.
It is past time for us as a society to recognize that the cost of these events extends beyond the dollars and the lives lost. We’re talking about our society’s mental health. It is not acceptable that we have become numb until the next time. Every one of us has a responsibility to work together to change this phenomenon.
Like many of you, I do not have the answer. I do know that we need to put pressure on the politicians to give up their political beliefs and come to the table as the parents, lovers and partners they are, and work together to make the changes necessary to ensure the safety of our country.
Lynda Pond is president of the Oregon Nurses Association, an AFT affiliate.
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