Katy Picard, an emergency medicine physician at Uchealth Memorial Hospital Central, was having a fairly quiet shift on Nov. 19, with only a few patients in need of treatment, when a nurse gave her the news that changed everything.

“One of the nurses came over to tell me that there was an active shooter … and that we might be getting anywhere from 10 to 20 gunshot victims,” Picard said.

The incoming wounded were the victims of a mass shooting at Club Q, an LGBTQ+ nightclub on Colorado Springs’ east side. Five people were killed in the attack, and another 17 were wounded.

Just a few minutes after Picard was notified of the incoming trauma victims, the first of the gunshot wounds came rolling in.

Uchealth Memorial, a Level I Trauma Center, received 12 gunshot victims that night. Picard, an attending physician, was responsible for six. Leslie Moats, another emergency trauma doctor, took the other six.

Emergency personnel at Uchealth hold casualty training sessions once a month, and Picard has treated more than 100 gunshot wounds, so “everybody knows who does what,” she said.

Not all bullet wounds are created equal, Picard said. Some rounds — like the ones the Club Q gunman fired — cause greater trauma than others.

“Some weapons are designed to cause maximum damage,” she said. “One bullet can injure a great deal. It’s a very, very traumatic injury.”

In mass casualty situations, emergency personnel must perform triage to determine which patients are in the most urgent need of treatment. After treating the gunshot victims in order of severity, Picard and the rest of the ER professionals were in perpetual motion between patients as they stabilized them and prepared them for surgery.

“It was chaotic, but I would say it was controlled chaos,” Picard said.

“We had people coming from upstairs to help out … running to the blood bank to get us blood … getting us the supplies that we needed. It think, to an outsider it might look a little bit wild, but everyone was focused and on task. We controlled the chaos the best that we could.”

All the gunshot victims who were treated at Uchealth Memorial survived their wounds, officials said. Seven are still hospitalized.

It was, Picard said, “a tragic and horrible situation.” But in the emergency room of a Level I trauma center, there is nearly always another patient in need of help. There wasn’t a lot of time for reflection.

So after the last gunshot victim was taken to the operating room, “I took a deep breath, and I got back to work,” she said.

Picard praised the bravery of Richard Fierro, the Army veteran who disarmed the Club Q gunman and kept a catastrophic situation from becoming much worse.

“He saved a lot of lives,” she said. “The outcome would not have been what it was without him.”

The ER doctor also expressed “gratitude and amazement” at the professionalism of the trauma surgeons, nurses, physician assistants, radiology technicians, pharmacy, lab and other hospital personnel.

“Unfortunately, we are getting really good at handling these types of situations,” Picard said. “I wish this wasn’t something that I had to be good at, and I think it’s tragic that it is.”