(WSVN) - Doctors who attended the parade in Highland Park were there to enjoy the holiday with family but were thrust into the parade nightmare to help rescue shooting victims.
Among those medical professionals were Dr. Wendy Binstock Rush and Dr. David Baum.
“I’ve never served but those are wartime injuries,” said Dr. Baum. “Those are what are seen in victims of war, not victims at a parade.”
The healthcare officials described what they witnessed after a mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade in Illinois.
Rush waited for her family to show up at the parade in Highland Park when she heard shots ring out.
“At the time the shots ceased, multiple people jumped up and rushed in to help in any way they could,” said Rush. “Anybody who had any medical background, first aid to physicians, all jumped in to action to do whatever they could to help the situation.”
Baum was one of the physicians to step in and help those who were hurt. He said the scene was horrifying.
“The people who were killed, were killed instantly,” said Baum. “There were — when the paramedics finally arrived, because it took a couple minutes, obviously they weren’t ready for a mass casualty situation, but the people who were gone were blown up by that gunfire.”
The doctor continued to describe the kinds of injuries he saw.
“Some of the bodies — there was an evisceration injury from the power of this gun and the bullets,” said Baum. “There was another person who had an unspeakable head injury, unspeakable, unspeakable.”
Rush, an anesthesiologist, also sprung into action to help a man who was bleeding out.
“They showed me to the most critical person at that time,” said Rush. “CPR was in progress, people were holding pressure on an abdominal wound that he was profusely bleeding from. “
Rush said she stayed with the man as paramedics arrived and took him to the hospital.
“We took him into the hospital and we spent about another 20-30 minutes working on him,” she said, “But unfortunately he had lost way too much blood and his injuries were too severe and he did perish at the hospital.”
Baum said the community will never be the same.
“What I saw was just families’ lives forever changed,” said the doctor.
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