Loma Linda University Medical Center (LLUMC) found itself at the center of a mass shooting story that garnered national news attention Wednesday.
A heavily armed man and woman terrorized San Bernardino on Wednesday, killing at least 14 people and wounding at least 17 at a social services center before leading the police on a manhunt culminating in a shootout that left the two suspects dead, the authorities said. Panic, chaos and rumor gripped this community, about 60 miles east of Los Angeles as the attackers carried out the nation’s worst mass shooting since the assault on an elementary school in Newtown, nearly three years ago.
Loma Linda University Medical Center, the only Level 1 trauma center in the Inland Empire, played a central role in the aftermath of the event, which occured less than three miles away.
LLU Health Public Information Officer Briana Pastorino told media that five adult victims were treated at LLUMC--two in critical but stable condition, two in fair condition, and one more still being assessed. Pastorino said she could not provide any identifying information about their gender or ethnicity, and she would not say whether one of the victims was a police officer. "We're all shaken by this," Pastorino said. "We're treating people that didn't need to get hurt today," she said.
Ted N.C. Wilson, president of the Adventist world church, declared:
“Let us pray for those affected by this tragedy in southern California and plead for the Holy Spirit to use each of us wherever we are in this troubled world to be part of God’s ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18), pointing people to the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, our Savior, who came at the first advent to provide us with eternal life and will return soon at His second advent to accomplish that task,” Wilson said on his Facebook page.
