Treating Kentucky school shooting victims made gun-owning Vanderbilt doctor sob

When Sterling Haring started his shift the day of the Kentucky school shooting, he walked into an emergency he had never dealt with before.

One victim was being rolled upstairs, two others were being rushed in from the helicopter outside. He put on a surgery gown and walked into the trauma bay.

As a medical resident on his one-month rotation in the emergency room unit, Haring stood off to the side to assist and observe. At one point, he grabbed a cervical collar to help stabilize a victim's neck.

The details after that are a bit fuzzy.

Seeing those children, he felt shaken — and physically ill.

Five teenage boys were flown to Vanderbilt Medical Center that day. One of them, 15-year-old Preston Ryan Cope, was pronounced dead at the hospital.

"More than just age separates a kid being shot and an adult being shot," Haring says. "It's a visceral reaction you have. It feels different."

When his shift was finally over, he walked into the chilly night toward his car and unlocked the door. The windows clouded with a layer of frost, he had to take a minute to defrost the windows of his car.

In that moment of stillness, he broke down and sobbed.

The Kentucky shooting was Vanderbilt Medical Center's first experience with a school shooting. It was also a first for Haring.

The 33-year-old dad is a gun owner himself. He grew up in Arkansas, his father worked as an executive at an outdoors company. 

Haring received a .22 rifle for his eighth birthday, after completing his hunter's education. He got a shotgun when he turned 12. By age 16, he was a member of the NRA. 

"I was raised in a home with guns," he says. "My whole family was just that way."

But, he has also spent a good portion of his adult life studying trauma. He is an injury policy researcher at Johns Hopkins and a medical resident at Vanderbilt.

He reinforces that his feelings and opinions are his own. They in no way represent Vanderbilt, and he is not speaking on their behalf.

But he is speaking out.

"The gun debate and gun violence and school shootings are not about atheist, anti-gun, un-American people against the Christian gun-owning group seeking rights.

"The idea that somehow this is a partisan issue blows my mind. There is no us and them. This is just an us issue.

"Victims don’t come from just one party and perpetrators don’t come from just one party.

"This is everyone."

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'All our constitutional rights have limits'

On Wednesday, Tennessee's House Civil Justice Subcommittee is scheduled to hear multiple gun-related bills.

Included is a bill that would allow a valid handgun-carry permit holder to carry a firearm at any time and in all places in Tennessee unless the person has been drinking alcohol, is in a judicial proceeding, or is on school grounds and does not tell the principal.

Moms Demand Action volunteers and survivors of gun violence will testify. They have organized a conference before the event that will include Democratic Rep. Bill Beck, Republican Senator Ferrell Haile, and former Metro Police Commander Robert Nash.

"As a father, a grandfather and a husband, I hate to see the gun violence we see in this country," says Nash, a 33-year veteran of the department who served as the commander of the East Precinct.

"Truly we are kind of alone in the world. We have so much more gun violence in this country than any other industrialized nation. We are doing something wrong. We can do better."

Nash is a gun owner, has a carry permit and believes in the right to bear arms, "but I think all our constitutional rights have limits."

He adds: "One school shooting is too many."

A majority of Americans — 57 percent — say it’s "too easy" to buy a gun in the United States, according to a national survey released by Quinnipiac University in 2017.

Of Americans who live in a household with a gun, nearly half — 45 percent — share that same sentiment, the surveyors found.

On the same page, but with 'loopholes'

Data also showed that 94 percent of voters, as well as 92 percent of Americans living in households where there is a gun, support criminal background checks on all firearms purchases.

"We're all on the same page," Haring says. "But there are loopholes." 

Federal law requires licensed dealers to conduct background checks on all potential buyers. But unlicensed private sellers — like individuals selling to a friend, those who work online or at gun show sales — are not required to observe the same policies. 

Timeline: Mass shootings and gun control legislation

Haring believes more should be done.

"God-fearing, gun-owning Americans in this world should be at the front of this to say, 'Hey, we don’t believe our guns should be used to kill children,'" Haring says.

A doctor, a parent, fearful for his son

Haring's own son, 5-year-old Cohen, will start kindergarten in Nashville next year.

The boy, with his short blond hair and toothy grin, won't think to be afraid.

But his dad will.

"Every parent has thought about this," Haring says. "Every parent has worried about this. Every one. Going to a movie theater, a restaurant. Now, you can't even go to a concert."

Or a school.

More:America's debate on gun control

In Kentucky, police said a 15-year-old student armed with a handgun opened fire near the start of the school day at Marshall County High School.

It became at least the 11th shooting on a school property in the first 25 days of 2018. Some of the shootings were suicides, some others had no reported injuries. 

But, in Kentucky, eighteen students were wounded — and two students died, including the teenage boy treated at Vanderbilt.

"This was my son," Haring said.

"Or your son.

"When it's anyone's son, it's everyone's son."

Reach Jessica Bliss at 615-259-8253 and jbliss@tennessean.com or on Twitter @jlbliss.