Texas doctor says it's 'crushing' as she treats mass shooting victims
for second time
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[May 27, 2022] SAN
ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) - A trauma doctor tending to three children
wounded in the school shooting in the Texas city of Uvalde said it is
"crushing" to treat victims of the second mass shooting in the area
within the last five years.
"It's a little bit crushing that, you know, you're talking about a
trauma center that's had two events in the last five years," Dr. Lillian
Liao, the pediatric trauma medical director at University Hospital in
San Antonio, told Reuters in a Zoom interview on Thursday.
Liao, who is a mother of two children herself, said she is treating one
nine-year-old and two 10-year-olds wounded in the Uvalde shooting at the
trauma center. She said one child is in serious but stable condition,
and the other two are in stable condition. It could be days or up to a
month until they are able to leave the hospital.
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On November 5, 2017, a man who was thrown out of the U.S. Air Force for
beating his wife and stepson shot 26 people dead at a church in
Sutherland Springs, about 30 miles (50 km) east of San Antonio, before
killing himself. Uvalde is about 80 miles west of San Antonio.
"Unfortunately or fortunately ... it's really challenging because we had
the experience of Sutherland Springs in 2017," Liao said.
"We had that mass casualty incident experience so we understand that
there is not only dealing with injuries, but all the other psycho-social
effects as a result of having been through a mass casualty incident."
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![](../images/052722PIX/news_n27.jpg)
A view of the University Hospital, where injured victims of a mass
shooting in Uvalde, TX are treated, in San Antonio, Texas, U.S., May
25, 2022. REUTERS/Lisa Krantz
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Since the pandemic began in 2020, Liao said she has
seen an uptick in firearm-related injuries, not just from gun
violence, but from accidents which could be avoided by safely
storing weapons and having a gun lock.
She said about 10% of the injuries she sees each year are
firearm-related and that number has steadily increased over the last
couple of years.
In the deadliest school shooting in nearly a decade, Salvador Ramos,
18, shot his grandmother on Tuesday and then crashed his car while
fleeing near Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.
He made his way into the school and fatally shot at least 21 people
before police apparently shot and killed him. At least 17 people,
including children and the gunman's grandmother, were wounded.
The human toll of the rampage deepened with news that the husband of
one of the slain teachers died of a heart attack on Thursday while
preparing for his wife's funeral.
(Reporting by Colette Luke; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and
Stephen Coates)
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