The action taken by the team at New Somerset Hospital in the wake of the recent shooting has been hailed by the Western Cape health department and described as heroic. Staff went beyond the call of duty to save a life.
Sister Diane Seale and her team managed to calm down the gunman, and in the process, ensured no more lives weren’t lost on Saturday. Three people were killed in the incident, including a Sea Point police officer who was disarmed and shot while responding to a complaint at the hospital.
Detailing the traumatic experience, Sr. Seale said she was busy with her routine handover process at New Somerset Hospital when her colleague received a call in distress. “I could hear her screaming and my colleague who had answered the phone informed me that there was an altercation on the second floor.”
Not knowing the extent of the traumatic event she was about to face, Sr Seale told her colleague that she should carry on with her work while Sr Seale attends to the situation.
She said as she entered the second floor, she noticed a body on the floor in the corridor, but her eye caught the man with the gun in his hand.
“I proceeded to walk straight to him, made eye contact. I walked towards him, and I hugged him. I escorted him into the cubicle. He told me to close the door. That also afforded our staff to then attend to the policeman who had been shot. I felt I could calm him down a bit. Although I had noted two patients had been shot and were deceased, there were still two patients that were alive that I needed to save. I kept him seated, standing in front of him, so that these patients were kept out of harm’s way,” she said.
She said she did not want to take her eyes off him and kept on telling him that they needed to talk. “I dealt with him as a person. I wasn’t focused on what he had done or might still do. I asked him, ‘What happened?’ I reached out and touched him, and he allowed me to. This gave me confidence and I knew that he trusted me. He looked at me while my hands were still on his shoulders and said, ‘You are brave, you are the only one that has come in here’. At this point, all I wanted to do was to keep him focused and calm.”
She remembers asking him several times to put the gun down: “I took him to my chest, held him close and he again allowed me to hold him. At least I knew there was this rapport between us.”
Amid this exchange Sr Seale was unaware that the tactical unit had arrived and were armed and ready outside the cubicle doors. She said her goal was to isolate him away from other staff and patients and he eventually agreed and, while remaining seated, she moved to the cubicle doors and only then became aware that the tactical team were outside.
“I believed that I had some control over the situation. There were some moments the perpetrator and I engaged in conversation, and I could even crack a joke. If he spoke to me, I allowed him that opportunity, but I would always come back to the request to put the gun down. During our exchanges I lifted his face and said, do you see this uniform, I am here to save life and limb. Eventually he agreed for me to sedate him. Through it all, I sat with him, stroking his forehead until he was finally sedated. At this point I could call the tactical team to subdue him. When I walked out, everyone was there. My team was there and safe. This gave me that encouragement I needed to push on,”she said.
Despite having just encountered the traumatic experience, Sr Seale immediately engaged with her team and embarked on debriefing the nurses as well as patients. Metropolitan counselling services, Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital psychosocial support and the Western Cape Health and Wellness team were all on site to offer support. “Through it all my main concern was that our patients were to be settled,” she said.
Western Cape Premier, Alan Winde, said the story of Sr. Seale is one of leadership, bravery, compassion, teamwork and true humanity. “Her unwavering focus and attention on the suspected shooter ensured that countless lives were spared. She and her entire team exemplify the Western Cape Government’s values of being caring, competent, and responsive; and they are an example to us all.”
Sr. Seale added: “Prayers and God got us through this. That is part and parcel of us and nurses, no matter how traumatic the event, when you are in that moment, you do what must be done. Yes, it’s something big, but it did not take ‘Diane’ alone, it took a team to bring this whole thing together.”
What an incredible heroic act of bravery as we celebrate International Nurses Day!
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