The only pediatrician in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two teachers were by a gunman last month, said some of the shooting’s victims were so mutilated they could only be identified by their ‘blood-spattered cartoon clothes.’
Dr Roy Guerrero, the town’s only pediatric doctor, gave testimony to US lawmakers Wednesday ahead of a hearing on gun violence.
Guerrero had rushed to Uvalde Memorial Hospital on May 24 once he learned of the shooting and found desperate parents outside the building who begged for any news related to their child.
‘Those mothers’ cries, I will never get out of my head,’ Guerrero told the House Committee on Oversight and Reform during the hearing. ‘I know I’ll never forget what I saw that day.’
The first student Guerrero treated was MIah Cerrillo, an 11-year-old who joined him in testifying Wednesday about how she had smeared her dead friend’s blood on herself to appear dead to the gunman.
While testifying, Guerrero recalled the horrific scene when two children in the shooting arrived at the hospital.
‘Two children, whose bodies had been pulverized by bullets fired at them, decapitated, whose flesh had been ripped apart, that the only clue as to their identities were the blood-spattered cartoon clothes still clinging to them, clinging for life and finding none,’ he told lawmakers.
Guerrero, who grew up in Uvalde, lost five of his young patients. Two of those patients he had known since they were newborns.
‘Making sure our children are safe from guns, that’s the job of our politicians and leaders. In this case, you are the doctors and our country is the patient. We are lying on the operating table, riddled with bullets like the children of Robb Elementary and so many other schools. We are bleeding out, and you are not there,’ he told lawmakers. ‘
My oath as a doctor means that I signed up to save lives. I do my job, and I guess it turns out that I am here to plead, to beg, to please, please do yours.’
Recent shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde have renewed efforts by Democrats in Congress to pass stricter gun control measures. Following Wednesday’s testimony, the House passed the Protecting Our Kids Act, which would raise the minimum age for buying semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21, among other measures.
The legislation, however, is likely to die in the Senate, where the support of 10 Republicans would be needed to place the bill on President Joe Biden’s desk.
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