ER professionals who treated Annunciation shooting victims urge Minnesota lawmakers to vote on gun bill
Twin Cities emergency room physicians, nurses and technicians made an emotional plea Tuesday for lawmakers to do something about Minnesota's gun laws.
Pediatric trauma surgeons say last year's deadly mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic School and Church in south Minneapolis still keeps them up at night. Some have joined the call for stricter gun laws.
"I have had to hear the anguished scream of a mother when I told her that her child has died," said Dr. Trish Valusek, the lead trauma surgeon at Children's Minnesota who treated the Annunciation victims.
A ban on assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines just passed the state Senate last week. But as the clock ticks down, there's no indication the House will act.
The health care professionals began with an unusual simulation: What happens in an ER when the call comes in that a five-year-old has been shot in the head. Maggiy Emery, executive director of Protect Minnesota, read the script.
"Level one trauma is called overhead throughout the entire hospital, level one trauma team is assembling, EMS arrives," Emery said.
One by one, 25 doctors, nurses and technicians were called up — the number needed to care for that critically injured child.
"It doesn't go away, and that was nine months ago and it still wakes me up at 3 in the morning," Valusek said. "That's what breaks my heart is that this was entirely preventable, and we knew that it was preventable and we didn't do anything to prevent it."
The group says they are making the same plea Annunciation parents are: let the bill that passed the Senate go to the House floor for a vote
"That is why we are here today, we need everyone who is standing in the way of this vote coming to the floor and we need everyone hopefully will have an opportunity to take a vote on it to understand exactly what they are voting for and against," Emery said.
But right now, the bill is in a legislative holding pattern with no indication that Republican House Speaker Lisa Demuth and her fellow party members plan to move it forward to House committees. With days left in the legislative session, it looks like this could be the end for this particular legislation.
A Republican bill that would give schools more money for security upgrades and mental health resources also remains in limbo.