DOCTOR FROM KINKORA OPERATED ON SHOOTING VICTIMS.
Doctor from P.E.I. shares thoughts on handguns after treating Danforth shooting victims
The gravity of the situation didn’t hit Dr. Bernard Lawless while he was performing life-saving surgery at St. Michael’s Hospital in downtown Toronto the night of Sunday, July 22. Bernard, who was originally born and raised in Kinkora, P.E.I., was the trauma surgeon on call at the hospital that evening. As patients began arriving to the hospital with gunshot wounds in rapid succession, the weight of what was unfolding around him was not in Lawless’ mind as he began to operate. “When you’re trained to deal with what you have at hand, you’re so laser-focused on what’s in front of you,” he said. “(At that time) I don’t think I fully appreciated the magnitude of the event that happened on the street. “It’s really only after the fact… some of the emotion sort of sets in and the magnitude of the tragedy, and how tragic it really was, sets in.” What had started as a slower evening soon had tragic consequences when a shooter killed two people and wounded 13 on Danforth Avenue before killing himself. The hospital knew there were multiple casualties from the incident – ultimately the department Lawless works in received five patients with three requiring immediate surgery – but at the time there was an uncertainty of how many more patients may be received through the night. Bernard’s mind first went to determining how quickly patients could be triaged and getting the operating rooms ready for surgery. Bernard also called in his colleague, Dr. Najma Ahmed, so they could operate in two rooms. He made a point of noting that it’s “never about one person” when working as a trauma surgeon. From those in the operating room to the paramedics and first responders who provide the first care in the field, he noted, every
“There’s probably no one magic solution to prevent these things from happening, but I think it will take the fortitude of politicians and input of people who have expert knowledge of all these elements that impact these events to create some solutions.” Dr. Bernard Lawless
piece is important in having a positive impact on a patient’s outcome. “Multiple teams and a lot of people who have to be all-handson-deck to manage that,” he said. “No person functions alone, I have a tremendous number of colleagues I work with, a tremendous amount of caring and dedicated health-care professionals.” Lawless completed his undergraduate degree at UNB in Fredericton and then went to University of Western Ontario for medical school, which is where he also did his general surgery residency and training. He later went to Vancouver for trauma surgery fellowship training. He began working with St. Michael’s Hospital in 2002. Lawless knows the impact of that night on the patients and families will last much longer than the story will in the media and minds of Canadians. “It’s life-lasting… (when we were updating the families of patients) we were seeing in their eyes a lack of understanding about how this could have happened,” he said. “You really have to ask yourself, do we need handguns in society? Do we have appropriate legislation to prevent this from happening again?” Lawless noted that some surgeons and hospital staff have begun talking informally of what they can do from a policy perspective to address gun violence, while also recognizing the many factors to the issue, including access to mental health care. With years seeing what gunshot wounds can do to a body, combined with a seeming increase of gun violence in Toronto, Lawless knows that it’s well past time to look for a solution. “It is incumbent upon us not just to treat injuries but to ask ourselves, where do we participate in what might be solutions or highlighting the magnitude of these issues,” he said. “There’s probably no one magic solution to prevent these things from happening, but I think it will take the fortitude of politicians and input of people who have expert knowledge of all these elements that impact these events to create some solutions. “We need to be asking ourselves, ‘what do we need to be doing next’.”