There were 50 calls to 911 in the minutes after last year’s mass shooting in Lewiston. More than 400 law enforcement officers rushed in to help.
But the massive response could not be fully quantified by the state commission that reviewed the shooting in which 40-year-old Army reservist Robert Card II killed 18 people and injured another 13 at a bowling alley and bar. Another 20 were injured trying to escape those scenes.
Hundreds of Mainers were called into action to do things they were trained to do — or not. They included dispatchers, medical personnel, officials coordinating community services and advocates who received sudden requests for help or came on their own volition.
Here are the stories of a doctor, a politician and a victim advocate who were called to serve. They have been edited lightly for length and clarity.
Central Maine Healthcare Chief Medical Officer Dr. John Alexander
Alexander oversees operations and medical staff at the Lewiston-based hospital system, including Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, which treated numerous shooting victims.
I had just gotten home and probably five minutes later got a call about an active shooter in the city of Lewiston and that we were expecting multiple victims to come to the medical center. So I came back. Our administrative team assembled and opened an incident command as a way to stay organized and allocate resources.
My responsibility shifted to the emergency department, where patients were coming. We had a hallway full of team members, probably 50 people at one point. They had come in to say, “How can we help?” We only had 13 victims come to us over a 30- to 40-minute period of time. Probably closer to 9:30 or so that evening, we realized we received everyone we were going to receive.
It took us a few hours to figure out who was in our hospital, and there were loved ones looking for people who died at the scene. That was really hard. Many of the victims were brought in either police vehicles or private vehicles, not by ambulance, and not necessarily carrying identification. We worked to communicate until 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. to let everyone know we’re thinking of them and that our job first and foremost was to continue to ensure safety.
At that point, it was really unclear where the gunman was. We had not just shooting patients but about 150 patients in our hospital. [Of the 13 gunshot victims], about half were discharged either that night or over the next four to five days. We had two victims for three to five weeks. We had two fatalities, and a third person died shortly after arrival.
It absolutely was the biggest staffing event in memory, with somewhere between 150 and 200 staff on hand during the initial surge. They were very much affected. Three or four fatalities were friends or family of team members. Robert Card has a family member who is on our team. The number of people who said, “I was supposed to take my kids to [the bowling alley that night],” or, “My husband was going to be there,” was incredibly impactful.
By the weekend, we had counselors on site for our staff 24-7 and maintained that for about a month. Every one of our team members had someone reach out to them to ask them how they were doing and what they needed. We use the phrase, “It’s OK to not be OK.”
Former Auburn Mayor Jason Levesque
Levesque was in office at the time of the mass shooting in his community’s twin city across the Androscoggin River. It was quickly clear the chaos and manhunt would ripple beyond Lewiston. Levesque went to Auburn Middle School to help officials open a family reunification center, where many found family members alive or later learned they were dead.
The big thing that I’ll never forget is that evening at the reunification center, talking to loved ones and families and not having the information to give them, trying to put their minds at ease and knowing that some of them weren’t going to be reunified with their loved ones. That sticks out.
The second moment was, throughout the course of that night, seeing reunifications happening and feeling this overwhelming sense of relief, seeing people I know being reunified and hearing their stories. That will stay with me forever. The aftermath was a whirlwind of talking to community members and to people all over the world, actually.
There was such a vacuum of information. They needed to hear from elected officials. They needed to know something. The whole fear that kind of racked this area for several days was pretty touchy, a very high-stress situation.
I urge [others] to look at the healing process, the fragile nature of life and the fleetingness in which we’re here and to make the most out of every day.
Cara Cookson, Maine’s director of victim services
Cara Cookson, the director of victim services in the Maine attorney general’s office, was at a conference in Bar Harbor when she and various colleagues heard about a mass casualty event in Lewiston. She and other victim witness advocates worked from afar before going to the city. They have since aided many who suffered physical and psychological trauma that night.
Early on, we committed ourselves to trying our best to replicate the same level of support and services that we would offer in any other criminal case, even though we had no idea just how massive and complex the work becomes when it’s on a mass violence scale.
When the FBI Victim Services team left, the victim services effort had to become a multi-state effort, with advocates driving from as far away as Presque Isle and Machias to help and our counterparts in New Hampshire spending two weeks with us. I’m proud to say that we’re a stronger group of advocates because of this experience, and now I’m focused on helping advocates build resiliency for the long-term.
One of the challenges of being a victim advocate is that when the immediate crisis ends and people move on, the work is really just beginning. But in the midst of all of the grief and fear — and physical pain for some — we also get to witness the strength and resilience of the survivors that emerges over time. We get to see how the story continues.
For many it’s impossible to just move on, and most will carry this for the rest of their lives, and at the same time, the community the survivors have built to support each other and the ways some people have started to transform can take my breath away sometimes.
