SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (AP) — Doctors at one of the hospitals that received people injured in the Texas church shooting said their eight patients, who included children, were calm and brave.
Dr. Kenneth Kingdon, noting that any trauma patient will be in shock, told a news conference Tuesday that the patients brought to Connally Memorial Medical Center in Floresville were “a little scared” but calm. He says, “They were all very cooperative and amazingly brave, considering the situation they’d been in.”
Twenty-six people were killed and about 20 were injured Sunday when a gunman opened fire at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, located about 13 miles from Floresville. Four of Connally’s eight patients were transferred to a San Antonio hospital. Three were treated and released from Connally and one remained Tuesday in stable condition.
Kingdon said that in general, the victims had multiple gunshot wounds.
Dr. Preston Morehead said staff members knew many of the patients already as friends or friends of family or because they were also patients at practices outside the emergency department.
Meanwhile, Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackitt says the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs told him the man who massacred worshippers had attended the church’s Fall Festival on Halloween night and his behavior did not raise any alarms.
Tackitt did not say if the pastor provided any details on that visit, such as what the shooter was doing, whether he wore a costume, or anything else that stood out.
Tackitt told reporters Tuesday: “The pastor told me he was here at the festival Halloween night, saw him in the crowd.” Tackitt says the pastor told him Devin Kelley had attended services at the church before.
Kelley opened fire in the church Sunday, killing 26 people.