Following Tuesday’s shooting that left three injured and the purported shooter dead at YouTube’s San Bruno campus, a doctor at San Francisco General Hospital chastised a scrum of media outlets for only paying attention following high-profile news events.
“The reality is that last week we had a mass casualty situation here,” said Dr. Andre Campbell, a trauma surgeon at the hospital. “The week before that, we had another.”
“I didn’t see all these cameras last week when I was here,” he continued. “That’s the problem.”
Campbell’s response followed a barrage of questions by reporters about the status of the shooting’s three surviving victims: a 36-year-old man in critical condition, a 32-year-old woman in serious condition, and a 27-year-old woman in “fair” condition — all of whom were awake and aware of what had happened.
“When something like this happens — which is unfortunate — you guys come out,” Campbell continued. “The reality is, we have to deal with this all the time. The families, the injuries: We have to deal with this constantly.”
Campbell said gun violence is pervasive, both locally and nationally. “At least we’re having a discussion about it,” he said. “You’d think that after we’ve seen Las Vegas, Parkland, the Pulse nightclub shooting, that we would see an end to this. But we have not.”
Surrounded by the scrum of local and national reporters, the surgeon refused to get into the details about the individual victims’ injuries, whether their families were present at the hospital, or anything concerning their identities.
“Why do you have to do that?” Campbell scolded one reporter who asked why the victims had not had surgery. “You guys always have to do that.”
By around 4 p.m. the emergency room was still not accessible to the public. A spokesman for General Hospital, Brent Andrew, said the “fourth victim,” who suffered an injury to their ankle, was possibly at Kaiser Hospital in San Bruno.
None of the victims’ identities has been released.
The shooter — a disgruntled video maker who turned a gun on herself following the shooting — has been identified as Nasim Aghdam of Southern California.
On Tuesday afternoon, YouTube employees described a chaotic scene. Through social media, some described employees hiding and running for safety. Some said the shooter was wearing armor, while others described quick successions of gunshots.
The three injured victims were transported 11 or so miles north to San Francisco. But that’s normal, said Andrew — San Francisco General Hospital’s trauma center serves northern San Mateo County and the rest of San Francisco.