Senior surgical resident Joshua Corsa was working the overnight shift at Orlando Regional Medical Centre when victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting were brought in.
Corsa and his colleagues worked throughout the night, desperately trying to save the 54 people brought to their facility.
The next day, he posted a photo of his blood-stained shoes on Facebook, alongside a poignant message about his experience.
Corsa’s bloodstained shoes.
“These are my work shoes from Saturday night,” he wrote. “They are brand new, not even a week old. On these shoes, soaked between their 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.”
Corsa vowed to continue wearing the shoes until the last injured victim left the hospital, when he planned to take them off and keep them in his office for the rest of his medical career.
“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 of come fighting right back. I never want to forget that night.”
The post has been shared more than 300,000 times.
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
