Joshua Corsa was finishing his second-to-last year of residency at the Orlando hospital when victims of the nightclub massacre started arriving.
A week ago Monday, surgeon Joshua Corsa finished operating on one of the Orlando club massacre victims and went to tell the family that everything would be okay. The mother wrapped her arms around him, and the stoic former Army medic broke down crying.
Hours earlier, he'd returned to the hospital at 4 a.m. to begin work again saving lives. The night before, he had been nearing the end of his 24-hour rotation, casually complaining with the other doctors about the mounds of paperwork required at the end of a shift, when they received the 2:16 a.m. "Trauma Now" alert. His boss called: Three hit in an active shooting. Sadly, not all that uncommon in an American city. But then, as he turned a corner inside Orlando Regional Medical Center, he saw the stream of people coming in, bloodied and in shock, and he knew it was catastrophic.
After 30 or so hours working straight, the last 10 or so on the Orlando massacre victims, he went home dazed and exhausted in the afternoon, only to return in the pre-dawn hours to continue surgeries. It was then, in the call room, that he saw the brand new Keen sneakers he'd been wearing the night before. They were stained with the blood of his patients.
"You know, it hadn't really hit me. Even to this day I see mass shooting in Orlando and it doesn't seem real. This is my city, this is my town, this can't be true. And I lived through the darn thing," he said in an interview. "It didn't hit me until Monday morning when I saw my shoes."
He snapped a photo of them. Overcome by what was happening around him, he wrote down his thoughts, and posted them and the picture on Facebook:
"I had forgotten about them until now. On these shoes, soaked between its fibers, is the blood of 54 innocent human beings. I don't know which were straight, which were gay, which were black, or which were Hispanic.
"What I do know is that they came to us in wave upon wave of suffering, screaming, and death. And somehow, in that chaos, doctors, nurses, technicians, police, paramedics, and others, performed super-human feats of compassion and care.
"This blood, which poured out of those patients and soaked through my scrubs and shoes, will stain me forever. In these Rorschach patterns of red I will forever see their faces and the faces of those that gave everything they had in those dark hours.
"There is still an enormous amount of work to be done. Some of that work will never end. And while I work I will continue to wear these shoes. And when the last patient leaves our hospital, I will take them off, and I will keep them in my office.
"I want to see them in front of me every time I go to work.
"For on June 12, after the worst of humanity reared its evil head, I saw the best of humanity . . . come fighting right back. I never want to forget that night."
Corsa assumed his Facebook page was private, and simply wanted to share how he was feeling with his friends and family. Instead, he shared those thoughts with the entire world. Hundreds of thousands of strangers shared the post. News outlets from all over the world covered it. He has since set his Facebook page to private, but not before his powerful words reached people desperately seeking such signs of humanity.
"It was certainly not my intention to get it out there but I'm flattered if people found even a modicum of solace in it," he said.
The 35-year-old is finishing his second-to-last year of residency at the Orlando hospital. He was the second most senior person working in the trauma unit that night. He's currently interviewing around the country for fellowships in surgical trauma.
Over the weekend, on his first day off in a week, he went to pick up his pressed suit for one of those interviews. Doing such a basic errand seemed wrong. To be thinking about anything other than the shooting felt like a betrayal.
"In a way, you feel guilty, like you're abandoning them by carrying on with your life," he said. "I think keeping the shoes on is another way to remind myself that I'm not abandoning them, that I'm carrying them on me all the time, until they are better."
Corsa has always been drawn to this work. Born in Massachusetts, he moved with his family to North Carolina when he was 15 years old. There, he started volunteering with the local fire department and when he graduated from high school he got an EMT certification and immediately joined the Army as a medic. He was deployed to Kosovo in 1999, and when he left the Army he decided he wanted to be a doctor. He put himself through college and medical school by working as a paramedic and a firefighter.
He has been thinking about enlisting with the National Guard, he said.
"Anytime you go through something like this, whether it's combat deployment or this, it helps shift your frame of focus and it helps remind you of what is really important," he said. "The things we think matter really don't. The things that matter in this case is taking care of people and taking care of those who need us the most, the other stuff is secondary to that. I hope I remember that for a long time."
Corsa is quick to point out that he just happened to post a photo on social media that went viral - and that a whole team of doctors and interns and pharmacists and phlebotomists and custodial staff worked tirelessly around the clock. People returned from vacation. They volunteered to come in when it wasn't their shift. Everyone, he said, immediately stepped up to save the lives.
He has never been an emotional guy, he said, but this week changed that. He said he has become a "hugger." He also has cried a lot. The first time was when he hugged the mother of the boy he'd helped save. The most recent was when he opened the Sunday paper and saw all the pictures of those he couldn't.
Corsa, who was between surgeries during the phone interview, said he was wearing the blood-soaked shoes as he spoke.
"I'm always going to keep them," he said. "It reminds me of the amazing things our team accomplished and the incredible way our city has come together, and hopefully it will keep my priorities in the right place and always keep me humble and appreciative."
© 2016 The Washington Post
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Hours earlier, he'd returned to the hospital at 4 a.m. to begin work again saving lives. The night before, he had been nearing the end of his 24-hour rotation, casually complaining with the other doctors about the mounds of paperwork required at the end of a shift, when they received the 2:16 a.m. "Trauma Now" alert. His boss called: Three hit in an active shooting. Sadly, not all that uncommon in an American city. But then, as he turned a corner inside Orlando Regional Medical Center, he saw the stream of people coming in, bloodied and in shock, and he knew it was catastrophic.
After 30 or so hours working straight, the last 10 or so on the Orlando massacre victims, he went home dazed and exhausted in the afternoon, only to return in the pre-dawn hours to continue surgeries. It was then, in the call room, that he saw the brand new Keen sneakers he'd been wearing the night before. They were stained with the blood of his patients.
"You know, it hadn't really hit me. Even to this day I see mass shooting in Orlando and it doesn't seem real. This is my city, this is my town, this can't be true. And I lived through the darn thing," he said in an interview. "It didn't hit me until Monday morning when I saw my shoes."
Joshua Corsa's bloodstained sneakers.
"I had forgotten about them until now. On these shoes, soaked between its fibers, is the blood of 54 innocent human beings. I don't know which were straight, which were gay, which were black, or which were Hispanic.
"What I do know is that they came to us in wave upon wave of suffering, screaming, and death. And somehow, in that chaos, doctors, nurses, technicians, police, paramedics, and others, performed super-human feats of compassion and care.
"This blood, which poured out of those patients and soaked through my scrubs and shoes, will stain me forever. In these Rorschach patterns of red I will forever see their faces and the faces of those that gave everything they had in those dark hours.
"There is still an enormous amount of work to be done. Some of that work will never end. And while I work I will continue to wear these shoes. And when the last patient leaves our hospital, I will take them off, and I will keep them in my office.
"I want to see them in front of me every time I go to work.
"For on June 12, after the worst of humanity reared its evil head, I saw the best of humanity . . . come fighting right back. I never want to forget that night."
Orlando Regional Medical Center doctors from left in front, Nicholas Sakis, Joshua Corsa, Shalina Golla and Aura Fuentes.
"It was certainly not my intention to get it out there but I'm flattered if people found even a modicum of solace in it," he said.
The 35-year-old is finishing his second-to-last year of residency at the Orlando hospital. He was the second most senior person working in the trauma unit that night. He's currently interviewing around the country for fellowships in surgical trauma.
Over the weekend, on his first day off in a week, he went to pick up his pressed suit for one of those interviews. Doing such a basic errand seemed wrong. To be thinking about anything other than the shooting felt like a betrayal.
"In a way, you feel guilty, like you're abandoning them by carrying on with your life," he said. "I think keeping the shoes on is another way to remind myself that I'm not abandoning them, that I'm carrying them on me all the time, until they are better."
Corsa has always been drawn to this work. Born in Massachusetts, he moved with his family to North Carolina when he was 15 years old. There, he started volunteering with the local fire department and when he graduated from high school he got an EMT certification and immediately joined the Army as a medic. He was deployed to Kosovo in 1999, and when he left the Army he decided he wanted to be a doctor. He put himself through college and medical school by working as a paramedic and a firefighter.
He has been thinking about enlisting with the National Guard, he said.
"Anytime you go through something like this, whether it's combat deployment or this, it helps shift your frame of focus and it helps remind you of what is really important," he said. "The things we think matter really don't. The things that matter in this case is taking care of people and taking care of those who need us the most, the other stuff is secondary to that. I hope I remember that for a long time."
Corsa is quick to point out that he just happened to post a photo on social media that went viral - and that a whole team of doctors and interns and pharmacists and phlebotomists and custodial staff worked tirelessly around the clock. People returned from vacation. They volunteered to come in when it wasn't their shift. Everyone, he said, immediately stepped up to save the lives.
He has never been an emotional guy, he said, but this week changed that. He said he has become a "hugger." He also has cried a lot. The first time was when he hugged the mother of the boy he'd helped save. The most recent was when he opened the Sunday paper and saw all the pictures of those he couldn't.
Corsa, who was between surgeries during the phone interview, said he was wearing the blood-soaked shoes as he spoke.
"I'm always going to keep them," he said. "It reminds me of the amazing things our team accomplished and the incredible way our city has come together, and hopefully it will keep my priorities in the right place and always keep me humble and appreciative."
© 2016 The Washington Post
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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