Medical providers gather Sunday afternoon during the inaugural rally for Maine Providers for Gun Safety, a newly formed group of health care workers demanding action to address the public health crisis of gun violence. The health care providers are gathered at a parking lot at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston to urge lawmakers to take action toward commonsense gun laws. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

LEWISTON — A group of over 200 health care providers formed in the wake of the Lewiston mass shootings gathered Sunday in the city to demand stricter gun laws.

More than a dozen members of Maine Providers for Gun Safety spoke at the rally, sharing details of their own experiences after the Oct. 25 tragedy, or of how they’ve been affected by gun violence.

Dr. Joe Anderson, a pediatrician at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston and chair of group, said he was clocking in at his hospital when the first wave of mass shooting victims began to arrive from Just-In-Time Recreation and Schemengees Bar & Grille. Anderson said hospital staff members were told to expect five gunshot victims, and an active shooter was still on the loose.

“My mind was flooded with questions I’d never faced at work before: If multiple patients need my attention at once, how would I decide where to shift my focus? Do we have the equipment ready to manage multiple critically ill pediatric patients at the same time in our community hospital? Will I be able to keep myself composed if one of my friends’ children is rolled in on a stretcher?” Anderson said during the rally at a parking lot at CMMC.

Anderson said his colleagues and other staff members – individually and as a team – responded phenomenally. They worked on the first wave of patients, and then prepared for a second wave.

Dr. Joe Anderson, left, a pediatrician, and other medical providers gather Sunday afternoon during the inaugural rally for Maine Providers for Gun Safety, a newly formed group of health care workers demanding action to address the public health crisis of gun violence. The health care providers are gathered at a parking lot at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston to urge lawmakers to take action toward commonsense gun laws. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

“Sadly, that second wave never came,” Anderson said.

Dr. Chris Turner said his operating rooms at Maine Medical Center in Portland were also prepared for five patients that night, but none of the patients would make it. Turner said in his work in pediatric surgery at hospitals in New York and Detroit, he never saw a patient with gunshot wounds from an assault rifle. Those patients, he said, typically end up at the morgue, not in surgery.

Turner said the state has three needs in its effort to combat gun violence: Maine-specific data on all factors related to injuries and deaths from gun violence, Maine-specific prevention and outreach strategies and an increase in sensible state legislation to protect the vulnerable.

“Please join me in contacting your local legislator and tell them that you’re tired of bearing witness to these preventable injuries, and demand action now,” Turner said.

Auburn resident and Midcoast-based child and family psychiatrist Dr. Kasey Moss said she grew up in a household where firearms were a part of life – her father ran a gun shop. Now, as an adult who prides herself on responsible gun ownership, Moss said Maine needs a “red flag” law to allow police to remove guns from potentially dangerous people, not a “yellow flag” law that requires a mental health evaluation before further steps can be taken.

Moss said those who continue to value their right to bear arms over public health are a “loud minority polarizing this issue.”

Moss said as news came out about Oct. 25 mass shooter, Robert Card, she could not help but think of her patients, locked down at their homes during the manhunt, who would have to continue carrying the stigma that comes with their own mental health diagnoses. Some of her patients – many with post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms – were affected profoundly by the violence and subsequent manhunt.

Molly Mann holds a “Lewiston Strong” sign Sunday afternoon as she and other medical providers gather during the inaugural rally for Maine Providers for Gun Safety, a newly formed group of health care workers demanding action to address the public health crisis of gun violence. The health care providers are gathered at a parking lot at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston to urge lawmakers to take action toward commonsense gun laws. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

Data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows 48,830 people died in 2021 due to firearms. More than 26,000, or 54%, of the deaths were suicides. Several doctors at Sunday’s rally said Maine’s numbers are more grim: About 75% of gun deaths in Maine are suicides.

“What breaks my heart is that there is one very concrete evidence-based way that we could save lives and end so much suffering and that is with common sense gun laws,” Moss said. “Mental health patients are more likely to be victims of violence than to be perpetrators of violence.

“A patient dying by suicide is a public health emergency. I have had patients I’ve been very concerned about both for the violence and suicide, and often feel that I cannot do enough to keep them and others safe. And that needs to change.”

Anderson said his work as a pediatrician demands his action as a “fierce advocate for my patients who don’t have the luxury of voting for a government that has their best interests at heart.”

He said since his vote is only worth one vote, it is his and every doctors’ duty to use expertise, public trust and influence to demand change.

“I will not rest,” Anderson said, “until we honor the thousands and thousands of lives unnecessarily lost to gun violence by instituting common sense gun safety reform. Inaction is not an option.”