One medical resident at Henry Ford Genesys Hospital in Grand Blanc Township discovered his wife and children were attending church services Sept. 28, when a gunman rammed his truck into the chapel, opened fire and set the building ablaze.
Two other medical residents from the hospital were at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints chapel and were injured in the attack. Other employees were attending the service and some raced in on their day off to help treat the wounded.
“This type of stuff doesn’t happen in Grand Blanc, Michigan,” said Dr. Chris Ash, a general and trauma surgeon who was among those responding at the hospital.
The doctors who work at Henry Ford Genesys Hospital spoke about the aftermath of the Grand Blanc Township shooting in a news conference Wednesday, Oct. 1, detailing how they raced to care for the wounded after Sunday’s attack, which left four dead and eight injured. Police say a fifth person, the suspected gunman, also was killed.
“Our resident whose kids were at church with his wife while he was operating with me that night at the hospital – his kids will never be the same,” Ash said.
‘There’s an active shooter in our church’
Dr. Alan Janssen, the program director for Henry Ford Genesys Hospital’s residency program, and Dr. Sanford Ross, the assistant director of the emergency department, were working Sunday morning in the ER. It was a sunny day.
“At one point, we did receive a phone call through the ER itself and it was from one of my residents. My resident was actually in the church and the resident said, ‘There’s an active shooter in our church,'” he said.
It took about 15 minutes for ambulances to arrive and for patients to come through the door, he said. In the time in between, the doctors prepped for a mass casualty event. They’d just had mass casualty training “a month or two ago,” Ross said.
“You always say it could happen, but it probably will happen, which is the unfortunate thing,” he said.
Contact Kristen Shamus and Lily Altavena: kshamus@freepress.com and laltavena@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Doctors detail race to care for Grand Blanc church shooting victims
