It
had already been a 15-hour day when
I left the hospital around 8 p.m. on that
Thursday night, headed for home. Within
minutes, my husband, a Dallas police officer,
called and told me, “Go back to work.” He
quickly filled me in on the massive shooting
downtown, assuring me he was safe.
I was so thankful my husband was OK, but my
heart was heavy for our larger police family. As
a police officer’s wife, I had that sense of dread
of what I was about to encounter at the hospital.
But as a nurse, I knew I had a job to do.
When I arrived, the first of the officers taken in
at Baylor Dallas was being received. There were
conflicting stories about what had happened, so
we didn’t know how many injured were coming.
It was scary, too, but we were all laser-focused
on maintaining high-quality care.
You prepare your entire career for something
like this, but you can never truly prepare. It was
controlled chaos, with other patients continuing
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to come through the door, and at one point, we
were in lock down.
We weren’t able to save all the officers, and
it was heartbreaking to watch the families
and other officers react to the news. At that
moment, I knew it could have been my husband
and that might have been me left to grieve. So
when it was time for the first officer to be taken
out of the hospital, the nurses lined up at the
door to show our respect to this fallen hero.
Soon, everyone was out there, holding hands
and creating a wall to give the officer and his
family privacy.
I like to believe that there is always something
good to come out of the bad, and in this case,
the community wrapped its arms around our
officers and our hospital.
– Sherry Sutton
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