Tech’s rescue squad underwent biggest test

FRANK GREEN / WSLS NewsChannel 10
Published: April 21, 2007

BLACKSBURG - Matthew Lewis was brushing his teeth Monday morning after an all-night shift with the Virginia Tech Rescue Squad when a call came in for assistance.

Initially, it was reported that someone had fallen at the West Ambler Johnston Hall dormitory.

When the rescuers got the the dorm, they found two people had been shot.

Virtually all of the squad's 40 volunteers, like Lewis, are college students, not combat medics. But by noon Monday, they had helped cope with 48 gunshot victims and various other injuries.

"When we're on the scene, all emotions go aside. We treat the patients, we treat the injuries. Afterwards, we all met, we comforted each other, we talked about what we'd seen," said Lewis, 21, of Dover, Del.

"We're all a close-knit family."

No one knows that better than Debbie Akers, an experienced paramedic who trained many of the students and who is known to them as "Mom." A member of the Christiansburg Rescue Squad, she also went to the campus Monday.

"These kids have seen things the majority of us will never see," she said. "They set up a command center and they ran it as if they were seasoned professionals who did this every day of their lives.

"They deserve all the credit in the world - not just for Monday, but for every day of their lives."

She said that long after the rescue work was over, another difficult assignment arose: moving the bodies to the state morgue in Roanoke. "There wasn't one of those kids that didn't agree to participate," she said.

The squad's president, Matthew Green, 21, a senior from Fredericksburg, said their two ambulances were the first to respond to both campus shooting scenes Monday.

"Everybody always thinks this could never happen to us. This could never happen here," said Green. But, he said, "while you always hope and pray that these things never occur, you prepare for the worst."

Green's father is a police officer, his mother a social worker. "I always wanted to give back to the community," he said, and that led to his decision to volunteer for the rescue squad.

He said he missed the first call when two were shot at West Ambler Johnston Hall around 7:15 a.m. Green and Lewis would not comment on what the initial calls reported.

But Akers said the first call said someone had fallen out of bed. When the first ambulance arrived, the crew called for assistance reporting two cardiac arrests, rather than triggering alarms by reporting shootings.

Green has no classes on Monday. "That's just kind of my day to sit back, relax," he said. He was driving east on U.S. 460 toward Christiansburg to work out at a gym when he spotted Virginia State Police cars racing back toward the campus.

He turned on his walkie-talkie, heard what happened and turned around. "I headed directly toward the Norris Hall area," he said. It turned out 46 people, including the gunman, had been shot there.

Green and Lewis helped work with patients at the scene. Then they returned to the squad office where one of their jobs was to deal with the media.

The two are the only squad members permitted to speak to reporters, who have dubbed them "The Matts."

There is actually a third "Matt," Matthew Johnson, who helped oversee the operation outside Norris Hall. "Around the station, we usually go by our last names, it's easier," said Green.

When there is a mass-casualty incident, the squad has procedures in place to call in and coordinate help from other rescue squads, said Green. Within three minutes of the call at Norris Hall, which is near the squad headquarters, five ambulances, in addition to the Tech squad's two, were on the scene.

In all, there were 15 ambulances from 12 other rescue agencies around the area that responded. "The Virginia Tech Rescue Squad actually oversaw the treatment and transport of all patients," said Green.

Police set aside a safe area where they could work. They set up a triage operation to sort patients by the severity of their wounds, from minor injuries - not all were from firearms - to critical ones.

Green says, "We were just a small part." Akers disagrees, saying the Tech squad's role was crucial. Green counters, "Everybody played an important part."

In any case, not only did his squad manage the rescue effort at Norris, the squad's volunteers, including Green and Lewis, worked "hands-on" with the victims.

The squad trains for mass-casualty incidents, typically those expected at a football game or other major school event. But, said Green, "We also train for multiple people with gunshots. We try to train for everything we obviously never hope to see."

Since Monday, Green and Lewis have been interviewed hundreds of times from media around the world.

"We've talked to Tokyo, to Peru, we've talked to Germany, we've talked to Canada," said Lewis. They were also interviewed by The History Channel, he said.

Green said he got to speak with morning news-show hosts and media celebrities he has watched for years, such as Larry King, Geraldo Rivera and Nancy Grace. "For them to turn around and talk to us, it's kind of shocking," said Green.

Lewis said, "There's definitely been some tears for the families and the patients and everything, and they are trying to figure out exactly what happened and how everybody is feeling.

"But it doesn't seem like anybody's having a particularly hard time . . . everybody's here for everybody else."

Green said that they are professionals, and during any incident they are preoccupied by the job. "Afterwards the emotions hit us not only as professionals, but we're full time students, and it's a close-knit family.

"We're just like anyone else out there. We're sorry for those involved and the families of those involved."

Lewis said, "We really haven't had that much time to reflect . . . but I'm sure once things start slowing down it'll hit us a little bit harder."

Green said, "We'll probably go to the gym together and talk about it and just work it out - physically and mentally."

Information:

The Virginia Tech Rescue Squad - http://www.rescue.vt.edu - is a student-run volunteer service begun in 1969. Though supported by the university, the squad also relies on donations.

Donations can be sent to:

Virginia Tech Rescue Squad

Military Building, Barger St (0245)

Blacksburg, VA 24061

Checks should be made payable to: the "Virginia Tech Foundation"

Frank Green is a staff writer at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.