AMIDST the chaos of mass casualties, where blood-stained floors and desperate cries fill the air, health-care workers find solace in a singular unifying force — each other. But when the dust settles, and the tragedy fades from the headlines, the events leave behind haunting memories that over time take a toll on those who answered the call.

For health-care providers at St Ann’s Bay Regional Hospital, these events are etched into their memories like scars, still evoking pain and sorrow when they remember the horrific events.

Sharing their experience handling these cases with the Jamaica Observer, they spoke of the psychological and emotional impact.

Taneshia Whyte, a nurse in the accident and emergency department, recalls a mass casualty involving children that she said is one she will never forget.

“My brain was like, ‘these are children, we need to do what we are doing correctly, we need to be on our A-game’,” she told the Observer.

While scrambling to help those affected, she said she encountered a patient’s relative who thanked her for the work she was doing to save everyone. Later she said she found the woman standing in a corner at the back of the room and approached her to find out why she was thanking her.

“She said I admitted her daughter last year. She was involved in the mass casualty on the Llandovery highway and she was in the intensive care unit. I said to her, ‘But your daughter, she passed,’ and she said ‘Yes’. She started crying, and I remember my eyes were filled with water, and I turned to her and I said, ‘Are you the patient today?’ and she said ‘No, my niece is involved in this mass casualty today,’” shared Whyte, painting a picture of the scene.

“She stood there, she broke down, and she cried. I remember comforting her, but I also remember at the end of my shift I went into my vehicle, I closed the door, and I cried because it was a lot for me that day to know that this lady, she lost her daughter to a mass casualty a year ago, and a few months later you have another relative here. It was really heartbreaking. I remember I sat in my vehicle and I just cried, because it was so much. I had to cry, I couldn’t drive home, I had to just sit there for awhile,” she said.

“Even now that I’m thinking about her, I’m still a little emotional to see somebody go through this twice,” Whyte added, her voice laced with sadness and pain as she reflected on the incident.

Senior emergency room (ER) resident Dr Tiffany Reid shared that, as trained medical professionals, most times they are operating like robots during these events, doing what they are taught and trying to put out the fire that is an overactive emergency room. But when everything is over, the reality of the situation sets in.

“In terms of how you are feeling at the end of the day, there is physical fatigue because it’s a lot. Can you imagine just moving, moving, moving on a mass casualty day and being able to get 18,000 steps without even trying. You’re just up and down, up and down, so at the end of the day the physical fatigue is there,” she explained.

Drawing on her first encounter with a mass casualty that involved children, she said it is one she will never forget.

“I have a three-year-old, and it took me back to my own child: Where is he? Is he safe? Everyday I leave him and go to work. Is he safe? Did somebody carry him somewhere? Was he a part of the accident? Am I searching to look if there is any familiar face?” she questioned.

“Emotionally, because of how you are with your own family, it becomes a lot when you are invested in the outcome of your patients. With me, I will follow-up, how are they doing, what happened to them after, and even when you hear of a demise afterwards, mentally for a moment that emotional side of you gets stimulated and you’re thinking to yourself, did I do enough? What could have been done to save them?” she told the Sunday Observer.

Emergency medical technician (EMT) Ricardo Rose shared that from the moment he started his career as a first responder his biggest fear was walking onto a scene to discover a family member or close friend with severed limbs or serious injuries a nightmare that later became reality when a vehicle carrying one of his family members collided with another.

“I remember going on the scene, there were about 26 people, and all of them had very serious injuries. When I went there two persons were my loved ones, so that’s when the adrenaline kicked in, the panicking started. I didn’t know what to do at first because you have that love for the persons, but we are professionally trained to deal with that, so I just did what I was taught,” he recalled.

When he arrived at the hospital and saw the organised chaos that unfolded, he said he was comforted by the thought that the team, like him, were putting their best foot forward to get the job done.

“When we have a mass casualty everybody always works together as a team and that is the greatest thing about it. No matter what the category is, we work as a team,” he said, making reference to the years of training and practice sessions they have to prepare them for these moments.

Recalling a different incident that occurred at University Hospital of the West Indies when mass hysteria broke out following a powerful 5.4-magnitude earthquake in October last year, Dr Kenisha Campbell- Patterson, now senior resident at the St Ann’s Bay Regional Hospital, said it was a terrifying experience.

“At the time, most of us were pretty traumatised by it when it happened and an onslaught of persons were coming into the department from all age groups, children to adults. It was mass hysteria. We had to deal with the emotional and psychological aspect in term of the trauma to those patients, and at the same time for us it was traumatic,” she said.

“I had patients who I had to be holding their hand while they were crying so it caused some amount of emotional drain. It was a unique incident within itself, and it still stands out in my mind today,” she added.

However, despite the emotional toll, these front-line workers say they remain committed to the task at hand, never backing down.