A simple gesture brought a moment of comfort to a hospital staff dealing with tragedy.
While caring for victims of the Umpqua Community College shooting in Oregon on Thursday, the staff of Mercy Medical Center in Roseburg received an unexpected delivery -- pizzas sent by Lafayette General Medical Center in Louisiana, USA Today reported. The delivery was an act of solidarity, as the Louisiana hospital had been the recipient of a similar gesture while treating its own shooting victims in July.
"We just wanted to pay it forward,” LGMC spokesman Daryl Cetnar told the news outlet. “We received pizza from a hospital in Waco, Texas, after the shootings here, and we were in awe of the gesture. We were hoping to never have to pay it forward.”
Sadly, the copycat act of kindness comes after terrible instances of history repeating itself. Back in May, Baylor Scott & White Medical Center treated dozens of injured people after gunfire erupted between rival biker gangs in Waco, killing nine. Two months later, LGMC treated victims following a mass shooting at a Lafayette movie theater, and staff at the Texas hospital, knowing the chaos that comes with such a mass response, had eight pies delivered to LGMC, New York Daily News reported.
“People were speechless,” Cetnar told the news outlet at the time. “They were all like, ‘How did somebody think of this so quickly?’ What’s most impressive is that they paid it forward almost instantaneously.”
And on Thursday, the Louisiana hosptial paid it forward to Roseburg, Oregon, after the mass shooting on the college campus left 10 reported dead. A nurse from Mercy Medical Center told USA Today the ER has also received comfort and support from other hospitals around the country.
“They remind us they got through it,” she said. “We are not alone, and we can recover like they have.”
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