Cleaning up after mass murder
On the night the unimaginable rained down on the brightly lit Las Vegas Strip, it was the faces of the familiar that jarred Dr John Fildes.
On October 1 last year, a wave of injured and wounded poured through the front doors of the trauma centre at the University Medical Centre in Las Vegas.
Less than an hour earlier, shooter Stephen Paddock, holed up in his suite on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, opened fire on a crowd of 22,000 concert-goers.
The 64-year-old, acting alone, fired more than 1100 rounds of military-grade ammunition at the panicked crowd, killing 58 and injuring hundreds of others.
Those that were hit with an intact round died instantly.
Of the injured, 104 made their way to the University Medical Centre’s trauma centre.
Most came in private vehicles. Cars and pickup trucks. Some arrived in Uber rides.
Fildes, who serves as clinical director of UMC’s trauma centre, recalls those first few chaotic hours in a manner untwisted by emotion or self-doubt.
His reaction and decisions that night honed by three decades of medical training and experience.
Fildes visited New Zealand this month to talk to staff at Waikato Hospital about his experiences dealing with the aftermath of mass murder.
His visit was arranged by Waikato Hospital clinical director of trauma Dr Grant Christey who himself has been busy helping Waikato prepare for its own mass casualty event.
Fildes has also been asked to speak in Sydney at a conference hosted by the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.
Detailing the fallout of the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history has become easier for Fildes.
But the event’s impact on Las Vegas, a city best known for excitement and excess, has been enduring.
‘‘Las Vegas can be interpreted as a lot of things,’’ Fildes says.
‘‘Some people see the city as cold-hearted, or a tourist destination, but it’s a real city