In the days after the shooting, the hospital’s polished hallways felt different—quieter, heavier, as if the building itself remembered. Staff returned to their shifts, but simple routines now carried an edge: walking through the parking garage, stepping out for a break, hearing a loud noise down the corridor. Many replayed the morning in their minds, asking whether they had missed warning signs in the shooter’s face, in a passing conversation, in a silence that now seemed loaded.
Counselors were brought in. Meetings were held. Management spoke of protocols, security upgrades, and resilience. But the hardest wounds were invisible: the realization that danger hadn’t come from a stranger, but from within their own ranks. Some found strength in each other, in shared fear and survival. Others quietly updated résumés, unable to rebuild that broken trust. Healing, they discovered, would be far slower than any discharge note could ever capture.
