{"id":3395,"date":"2026-06-09T12:04:57","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T12:04:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orlandorelocationreport.com\/?p=3395"},"modified":"2026-06-09T12:04:57","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T12:04:57","slug":"pulse-anniversary-an-er-doctor-called-for-help-this-is-not-a-drill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orlandorelocationreport.com\/?p=3395","title":{"rendered":"Pulse anniversary: An ER doctor called for help. \u2018This is not a drill.\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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At 3:25 a.m. on June 12, with Orlando Health\u2019s emergency department filled with Pulse\u2019s wounded, the hospital activated a \u201cCode Silver.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Pulse anniversary: A survivor moves on but \u2018can\u2019t forget everything\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

The alert, warning of a possible imminent safety threat to patients, staff and visitors, heightened an already tense and perilously chaotic scene inside Central Florida\u2019s busiest trauma center, where victims had arrived by fire\/rescue squads, police cruisers and pickup trucks.<\/p>\n

Forty-four people from the gay nightclub, all shot, most multiple times, had been brought in, dead or in danger of dying. Now this.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought there was an active shooter on the premises of the hospital,\u201d Dr. Chadwick Smith, the on-call surgeon in the ER when Pulse happened, said, detailing a vivid memory of the ordeal, little-mentioned at the time, during a recent interview marking the 10th anniversary of the tragedy.<\/p>\n

The notion was not far-fetched. Pulse was no more than two blocks south of the hospital.<\/p>\n

Smith called colleagues at home for help. \u201cThis is not a drill. This is not a joke. Twenty-plus gunshot wounds are coming in,\u201d Smith said to trauma surgeons he had awakened. \u201cI need you here as fast as you can. And every time, the answer I got was \u2018I\u2019ll be right there.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Joseph Ibrahim and Dr. Michael Cheatham, among those who answered the call, had heard about the Code Silver. Cheatham said they thought perhaps the gunman fled from Pulse and was impersonating a victim.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of the people working in the trauma bays barricaded the doors but kept caring for patients,\u201d Smith said of the staff response to the alert. \u201cThat\u2019s pretty traumatic. You\u2019re caring for people who have been shot and you\u2019re now worried about being shot yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Asking Eric: Our car died, our neighbor helped, and now he won\u2019t talk to us<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Smith said worried coworkers texted their own loved ones but never lost focus on saving lives.<\/p>\n

Though a skilled surgeon, Smith didn\u2019t perform a single surgery that night.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy role that night was to direct the flow of patients into operating rooms in order of urgency,\u201d he said. \u201cIf somebody\u2019s been shot, a surgeon really needs to make the determination of what\u2019s needed \u2014 who needs to go into an operating room and in what order.\u201d<\/p>\n

As night turned to morning, Smith remembered, he walked the Emergency Department, visiting every patient who had been wounded or operated on, keeping tabs on each, making notes on small stickers that he, at first, stuck on the pant legs of his light blue scrubs.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Incredibly, every patient who made it alive to the operating room \u2014 35 in all \u2014 survived. The staff performed a total of 76 operations on the Pulse victims.<\/p>\n

\u201cCode Silver,\u201d a false alarm, was called off at 4:14 a.m.<\/p>\n

For their heroic work, the trauma team was honored in 2017 as the Orlando Sentinel\u2019s \u201cCentral Floridians of the Year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now 50, Smith has grown accustomed to questions about the hospital\u2019s response that night.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kind of expect it about this time of the year, every year, and I figured this year there would be even more [attention] because it\u2019s been 10 years now,\u201d said Smith, who sat for interviews in May not only with the Orlando Sentinel but also TV news stations and online publications.<\/p>\n

Read more Miss Manners: They didn\u2019t comment on my body, and I\u2019m offended<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Orlando Health’s emergency department treated 44 shooting victims after the Pulse massacre, with its on-call surgeon calling colleagues at home for help. “This is not a drill.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"yoast_head":"\nPulse anniversary: An ER doctor called for help. \u2018This is not a drill.\u2019 - Orlando Relocation Report<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orlandorelocationreport.com\/?p=3395\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pulse anniversary: An ER doctor called for help. \u2018This is not a drill.\u2019 - Orlando Relocation Report\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Orlando Health's emergency department treated 44 shooting victims after the Pulse massacre, with its on-call surgeon calling colleagues at home for help. 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