“The second girl was awake and sobbing,” Goerke said. “She didn’t really know what had happened to her. We really didn’t know what had happened to her. She looked like she had little knife and bullet wounds all over her chest.”
The wounds, Goerke learned, were caused by shrapnel from one of the improvised bombs that went off. It was the first time she had witnessed such an injury.
“We hadn’t been in a war zone before,” she said.
To calm her young patient, Goerke talked to her about the recent prom and about the then-upcoming graduation.
The fourth victim, another boy, needed surgery on his chest, abdomen and spine, and repair to his left arm.
Despite the life and death urgency of the work, ringing phones, anxious family members in waiting rooms, and police and media descending on the hospital, Goerke described an aura of professionalism and calm.
“I thought it was going to be chaotic, but it really wasn’t,” she said. “(The staffers) all knew what they were doing and were taking care of their jobs and moving forward.”
The community support from within and outside the hospital was tremendous, Goerke said. People with elective surgeries rescheduled them to free up operating rooms. Hospitals sent equipment, people and supplies. Housekeeping and maintenance staff guarded doors to protect the patients. Doctors who had heard about the tragedy simply showed up.
“It was a tremendous relief to walk into the ED (emergency department) and see a wall of white coats,” Goerke said.
All four patients lived. All the victims treated at hospitals lived. It’s one of the miracles Goerke counted that day.
Why the tragedy happened is due to sin, Goerke said, noting that with free will comes the choice to do good or evil. We are all guilty of sin, she emphasized. And Christ’s suffering, death and resurrection is the instrument God used to redeem us of our sin.
“Christ’s suffering was the perfect example of what we’re supposed to do,” Goerke said. “It showed obedience, humility and service.
“God showed us,” she added, “that there’s nothing he wouldn’t want us to do he hasn’t already done himself.”
Noting that the Acts of the Apostles (14:22) says, “through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of heaven,” Goerke said, “(God) is telling us we are made worthy through suffering.”
Suffering can transform us, strengthen our faith and unite us with Christ, she said.
With their intuition, empathy and desire to connect with people, women especially are called to help others carry their crosses and share Christ’s redemptive love, Goerke said.
“That is the triumph of this tragedy in us and in others, and is our salvation,” she said.
Printed with permission from the Denver Catholic Register, newspaper for the Archdiocese of Denver.