‘These very young students saw combat-level injuries’: Medical students reflect on Aug. 3 shooting

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- El Paso medical professionals had just minutes to prepare for one of the most difficult days in their careers: August 3, 2019, the day of the Walmart mass shooting. In the chaos, some nursing and medical students suddenly found themselves on the front lines.

A year later, the sights and sounds of the hospital still linger with medical student Christian Castro. Castro is of the many health care students who raced in to volunteer at hospitals after the mass shooting, rushing into the trauma and feeling compelled to go where they could help.

"It hit me that whatever is going on, however many people are hurt, the hospital's going to need help," he said.

"We came in on the opposite side of the emergency room," Castro said. "It was very quiet, very empty, kind of an eerie feeling. As we got closer, the quiet, eerie feeling kind of changed to this more urgent, louder, noise-filled environment of the emergency room."

At the time, Castro was a third-year medical student at the Paul L. Foster School of Medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso.

"Once I figured out that my immediate family and friends were all okay, my extended family of El Paso, I kind of had the sense that they were in danger," Castro said. "I needed to be there. My community needed me."

At University Medical Center, it quickly became clear: no job was too small.

"They were receiving these victims as they were coming in from pedestrian vehicles, from ambulances," Castro said. "They were meeting them at the door, assessing them within a couple of seconds to minutes... Everyone had a little role to play in that time and kind of like this little symphony of chaos mended in its way into taking care of these patients."

"No one looked out of  place," he added. "Everyone knew that they had a job that needed to be done."

Health care students became heroes, suddenly thrust into the middle of the crisis.

"Our students were in clinicals and they were in the ICU, the emergency department and also in OR," said Dr. Stephanie Woods, the Dean of the Hunt School of Nursing at TTUHSC El Paso. "Very quickly we had to make a decision.

Nursing students at TTUHSC El Paso went on lockdown, but instead of sheltering in place, they jumped in to the fight.

"These very young students in their early twenties, mid-twenties, suddenly saw combat-level injuries," Dr. Woods said. "They saw things they have never seen and would hope to never see again."

It was a lesson they might not have learned in a classroom, and one they likely hoped they would never have to learn at all.

"When you commit to certain purposes in your life, you don't get to ask yourself, 'I'll do that if that's convenient,'" Dr. Woods said. "Nurses don't have the option of saying, 'I'm going to stand aside from this crisis.'"

For Castro, instinct took over.

"Everything happened so quickly," Castro said. "It really wasn't until I got home later that night that I had a chance to sit down and like take a deep breath and then think like, 'wow, this really happened.' The families we helped. The families we couldn't help. The patients, the doctors and the nurses and the things we saw and the things we heard. It kind of rushed in all at once."

A year later, Castro knows the impact will last a lifetime.

"If it wasn't already clear to me, it became crystal clear that that's where I was meant to be. I was right where I was supposed to be," Castro said. "It did kind of serve as an example, or like a very clear magnifying glass, for me to see that I truly am on the right path and I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. There's no question about it."