HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – Dozens of trauma survivors reunited with hospital staff and their rescue workers at Memorial Regional Hospital on Thursday.
The annual event celebrates trauma survivors and their journey during Trauma Awareness Month.
On Memorial Day in 2023 there was a shooting on Hollywood Beach in which nine people were injured, including a toddler.
“I grabbed my boys and we are walking out toward the bandstand to leave, and there is a guy laying in the sand, shot in the leg with blood coming out,” said Dr. Dean Hertzler from Memorial Regional Hospital.
He happened to be there with his kids and went from dad mode to doctor mode instantly.
“We got a leather belt from a passerby and improvised a tourniquet,” he said.
That response saved the victim’s life.
On Thursday, several survivors spoke and told their stories.
Meghan Bishop survived after a plane crashed into her vehicle back in 2021 in Pembroke Pines. Her son Taylor Bishop, sadly, did not survive.
“That’s the hardest thing that I deal with, the survivor’s guilt,” she said. “I couldn’t do anything.”
It’s a pain that never dulls.
“We hear people say it takes a village to raise a child, but it also takes a village to honor one, and without my village I would not be where I am today,” Bishop said.