Volunteer Services

Introduction

In Volunteer Services, we are trained to be attuned to the emotions and needs of our patients and family members. At no time in my career has that training been more evident than during the hours and days following the Pulse shooting. On a typical day, members of the volunteer services and patient experience teams at Orlando Health Orlando Regional Medical Center (ORMC) interact with dozens of visitors, most of them asking for directions to patients’ rooms or delivering mail or flowers. But on June 12, 2016, everything was amplified — thousands of calls, hundreds of guests looking for news about their loved ones and everywhere the question of alive or dead.

The weight of all those hurting hearts was at times a difficult assignment. In the aftermath of the tragedy, I started journaling as a way to sort through and cope with what I had witnessed in the sad, hopeful, crushed faces of victims’ families and friends.

As I look back over what I wrote in the summer of 2016, a handful of passages stand out as guideposts for others who may find themselves in this situation. I’m often asked how I dealt with those intense days, and these snapshots capture a lot of that in-the-moment rawness. I use them as examples to illustrate some of the key takeaways of how we helped our patients, their loved ones and each other during this national tragedy.

The first family that I helped was a mom and dad, brother and girlfriend. The mom I will never forget as long as I live — Elaine. She was wrapped in a blanket. She was shivering so violently she was convulsing. She was not cold. She was in such panic and fear she was literally shaking. The kind of shake that jolts your whole body every few seconds and makes your teeth chatter. She was holding a cell phone. “My daughter is here! She is on the phone right now. I know she is here — why can't I see her? Why won't anyone take us to her? She has been shot. I know she is here!!”

I looked at her and I thought...if I knew my son was here and shot — possibly dying — you would have to hold me down with restraints or kill me to keep me from him. 

Within the first hour, we saw the physical toll this emotionally charged situation was taking on victims’ family members and friends. We kept note pads with us and wrote down family members’ names and who they were looking for. We collected details and spent time reassuring the families that we were looking for their loved ones. We delivered as many chargers as we could find in the gift shops. We organized the tables in the family room so that they were around outlets so that they could stay connected to family and info on their phones. We hugged and cried with the friends and family members of the victims, and we provided empathy and information as often as we could.

Tracking Who Was in the Hospital

In the hours that followed my sense of time got really lost…People were pacing up and down the halls. Loaded into the “family room” crying, frantically texting and emailing… searching. Some of the tables had people covered in blankets sleeping… they were in the club and somehow got out without physical gunshot wounds and just couldn’t keep their eyes open any longer. Sobbing, crying, worried faces everywhere. When either my colleague, Jeremy, or I entered the room we would get bombarded with people asking if we had news or had we heard anything about their loved one. I kept a notebook of names of the people I was searching for… I held those names close to me and knew the huge responsibility I was carrying.

The volunteer services and guest services teams worked together to organize the families as well as the food and water donations. We assigned team members to create a spreadsheet of family names and details of their loved ones. Although volunteers did not come in on Sunday, the volunteer staff worked to organize the donations of water, pizza and blankets that were coming in. I kept my eye on 15 families and updated them with information as it became available. In some cases, we knew we were collecting families to tell them that their loved one had died. This was a very emotional and heart-wrenching job. We also provided an email address for the families to send photos of who they were searching for so we could help identify survivors.

The Notification Process

Luis, your brother described you as his boy. His “best friend.” The pictures he shared with me showed your sweet young face. I knew you were gone and I had to keep your family together so that the FBI could tell them. I hope I did that the right way and that your memory was honored by me. When your mom arrived, we walked your family to a room to tell them that you were here but had not survived. Your mom realized what was happening as she walked down the hall. I saw her begin to understand what was happening and I saw the despair wash across her face. Your brother’s cries are etched in my brain. They love you. Their agony was almost unbearable. 

When we began notifying the families that their loved one had died, we had to work hand in hand with the FBI and hospital administration. Our system’s chief operating officer, Dr. Jamal Hakim, stayed with every family when they went into the room with the FBI. After they were told the terrible news, we provided a quiet room for them to grieve and call other loved ones. We found a private exit to guide families out so that they would not have to face a crowd.

I walked a grieving family out the back door of the hospital to avoid prying eyes and media. The family was inconsolable. All I could say was, “I am so sorry for your loss.” They could not look at me. We just told them the worst news of their lives and now they have to go out into the world and face the reality of what just happened. I hear the cries of this family still. The “Nos!!!” and the “Whys!!!” Haunting.

Media

The media arrived right away and set up camp. There were tents all along the street and at every entrance. We established another location at a hotel across the street for the overflow of families and friends. The walk between the hospital and the hotel was lined with cameras and reporters. The volunteer and patient experience teams walked side by side with these families to ensure they had privacy. Anderson Cooper’s entourage caused quite a stir and people began going out to see him.

Getting Through This

Jeremy and I sat down in a small conference room for about 2 minutes. The president was on TV talking about the shooting. It was the first coverage I had seen all day and it was the president. We just looked at each other like what is happening? We are on national news? We asked each other if the other one was ok and we both said no and then we stood up and walked back out into the chaos. We were committed to getting through this.

It was my true honor to help in any way that I could on June 12 and in the year that followed. In some way I believe that I just swallowed all the sadness at the time so that I could be strong for these families. That took a toll on me in the form of some post-traumatic stress indicators. The FBI provided sessions for us to talk about what we might encounter as we recovered from this event. I was very thankful for these sessions. They provided us with a sheet that listed some of the things we might experience, and I was relieved to see some of what was happening to me on the list. It made me feel normal — that what I was experiencing was normal. Some examples were memory loss or loss of your train of thought. I thought I was losing my mind as mid-sentence I had no idea what I was saying — normal PTSD indicator and knowing that made me feel better. Other effects were loss of appetite and sleeplessness. I also experienced some jumpiness around loud noises — this was surprising as I was not involved in the incident, but nonetheless I was told it is normal and will pass. It all did.

Donations

At the end of a very long Sunday, a huge truck pulled up from Safeway. They said that they just filled up with water and snacks and fruit and headed out to help wherever they could. They had gone to the blood bank that was packed but they were overflowing with donations so they headed to ORMC. We all went outside to help unload... Even our CEO, David Strong.

Donations came in from all over the world. The outpouring was really beautiful and helped our teams, the families and the victims a lot. There are several categories that fall under this area.

• Banners
• Cards and inspirational gifts
• Food
• Water
• Services (clinical, therapy, salon, travel, accommodations and so on)
• Gift Cards
• Celebrity/ Government visits

Volunteer Services worked closely with Community Relations on the collection, documentation and distribution of donations. We had some lessons learned and created some guidelines and documents to ensure a seamless set up if we should ever need it again.

• Establish a list of items needed and appropriate and what is not appropriate for the hospital.
• Set up a phone number and an email address for people to reach out and get answers of what we are truly in need of.
• Prepare an automatic response listing the appropriate items needed and how people can help.
• Provide a script and train operators, patient experience staff and volunteers how to answer the phone and respond to the donations.
• Provide a list of acceptable charities to donate to in the community.
• Establish a fund within the foundation to support efforts around the incident.
• Comprehensive tracking sheets — include quantity, contact person, phone number, address and description of items.
  1. Tracking/ Spreadsheet for donations that come in through the departments and were not seen by Volunteer Services or Community Relations
• Work closely with security to determine the safety of all donations.
• Establish a protocol for celebrity and government visits and assign a team member to each for visiting.

Services Provided by the Community

In several cases, I had to work with airlines to provide travel for these families, many of whom were not from Florida. We connected the victims with services in the community, such as the fund that was being raised or other financial services to pay for their rent or cars or groceries.

I was even able to cancel some vacation plans for a victim and her friends, and got them a refund. This kind of service provides some relief from the stress of what life is going to be like after they are out of our care. Establishing a relationship with the survivors and their families gave them the support they needed in the months that followed.

Healing

Remember to take care of yourself. Eat, sleep and be forgiving of the sadness and vulnerability you will feel. It is all normal and makes us all human. Do everything you can for the families and victims — and take care of yourself.

The Tuesday after Pulse my friend Meredith called and asked me to go to yoga with her. Over the past year my yoga class has been a place I go to heal. I told her I was a zombie and had no clothes or anything for yoga. Mere said if I could get there she would bring me clothes. At this point I was not functioning properly. I had not been able to really let go and cry and let it all out. I think I actually wouldn’t let myself. I was very afraid of sitting in any kind of silence. I got to class after my third especially long day at work. I was nonstop until that point. I did not sit, I did not think about myself, I did not even take care of my family. I was completely immersed in the surviving families in my care. Yoga was a very frightening proposition. As soon as I sat I felt the tears and despair boiling up in me. I was so sad and so bottled up… until then. I know that the teacher knew and could feel my pain and she took special care to stop and have us sit with our hands in prayer and breathe. Tears were streaming down my face uncontrollably. I was finally letting it out. There is a part in the end of class that you lay in “corpse pose” — literally dead body pose. As I lay there on the floor all I could think about were all of the lost souls lying on the floor at Pulse… they would not ever get up again. I was really consumed with grief. I still think of them when I am in this pose in class… I think I always will.