Brandon Davis remembers hearing a couple of gunshots just before he was wounded, but much of what else happened on Sept. 9, 2023, remains fuzzy.
Ironically, Davis had arrived in Washington from Chambersburg, Pa., to try to save a life. He had been scheduled to have his kidney tested for a transplant to his friend and mentor.
At about three in the afternoon, Davis walked along Connecticut Avenue NW go to a 7-Eleven. Then gunfire struck his torso.
He remembers being confused in an ambulance, hearing medics saying he was going into shock, but he felt coherent.
“I thought everything was fine, until I woke up in the hospital,” Davis recalled. “I woke up in October and that’s what I remember.”
For weeks, doctors at George Washington University Hospital had been treating the gunshot. Davis was hospitalized for six months and underwent a dozen surgeries.
At a ceremony Wednesday, Davis and five other trauma victims from the past year recounted their experiences and thanked the people who saved their lives.
For 13 years running, the hospital has hosted this event to honor patients who survived the most acute traumatic injuries from violent crime, accidents and crashes. It also outlines the treatment provided to save their lives.
Babak Sarani, the hospital’s director of trauma and acute care surgery, said the annual event is his favorite day at work.
“The staff tell me this is one of their favorite days of the year as well,” Sarani said. “Today allows us to recharge our battery and to remind ourselves of our calling and our mission, namely to help our fellow person in need.”
Former patients posed for photos with first responders and hospital staff. Smiles filled a conference room at the GW Milken Institute of Public Health.
“You all were my light. Thank you so much for being professional, being polite and being kind to me at all times,” Davis said during his remarks. “You were my light when I wanted to give up, when I wanted to be grouchy.”
Hospital leaders praised pre-hospital treatment provided by EMTs and paramedics from D.C. Fire and EMS and city contractor AMR, as well as first responders from suburban jurisdictions.
Sarani also highlighted several medical advances in emergency medicine used during treatment, including lessons learned from military battlefields and a pilot program run by D.C. Fire and EMS that administers blood in the field to patients with life-threatening conditions.
On June 19, Anthony Chappelle received a pint of blood after gunfire wounded him as he and niece played with water balloons near Potomac Avenue and K Street SE. He had heard the shot and felt pain, but he said “it felt like a BB gun.”
Then the blood gushed from his side. By the time medics arrived, his vital signs had dipped and the gunshot had severed the main blood vessel that returns blood to the heart. At the hospital, two military surgeons joined vascular surgeons and used liver transplant techniques to treat Chappelle’s wounds, Sarani said.
“Said simply, the pivotal role of the fire department’s transfusion protocol and your survival cannot be overstated,” Sarani said of Chappelle, who suffered injuries to his kidney, lung and liver.
Gratitude was the theme throughout the hour-long ceremony as victims took their turns at the lectern. But some couldn’t find the words.
Shawn Wilkerson was shot 10 times on Christmas Day in Southeast last year. The former construction worker began to speak several times, but choked up at each attempt. Finally, he flexed both biceps and smiled before he limped happily from the dais.
