TULSA, Okla. — One year after the deadly shooting at Saint Francis Healthcare System in Tulsa, the wounds still cut deep.
One person on the front lines of the tragedy is Dr. Ryan Parker.
June 1, 2022, was Dr. Parker’s first day as the associate chief medical officer for the Yale campus.
She was Saint Francis’ director of emergency medicine prior and was in that role during the COVID-19 pandemic.
So, she has seen that hurt many times before.
But to be there when the shooting happened is something much different.
“I was actually getting prepared to leave,” Parker said. “I had, you know, maybe 30 more minutes left to the day and heard a commotion out in the office and one of my colleague’s kind of took off in a full sprint and you know, you are like, what's going on and then I literally seconds later I hear Ryan get your keys, there's the shooting."
Parker said she knew what to do.
"And your kind of just at that point, I just you start going into work mode and like okay, I grabbed my keys, and we ran just get a command center set up,” Dr. Parker said. “But yeah, there wasn't any way that you know, you could prepare anticipate any of that."
With her medical training, Dr. Parker said responding to the shooting was like muscle memory.
She said when the adrenaline is going, you get to work.
"The trauma Hall was just lined with people we didn't know at that point. We had limited information about how many victims we were going to get so we were preparing for whatever would happen,” Dr. Parker said. “Should it be a mass casualty event and so to see the sheer number of people who were ready prepared. There was kind of this stoic okay, we're, we're here to do this."
Dr. Parker said the event gave them a new perspective on just how fragile human life can be, inspiring them to continue their work.
"For this event, it's sort of you know, with COVID, it was people that we were helping from the community, they were coming to us from help and there was some fatigue because it had been such a long, drawn-out process,” Parker said. “This was different because it was personal. It was in our home. It was our family, our colleagues."
Reminding them how being there for each other was that much more crucial.
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