As the nation tries to cope with the tragedy at Virginia Tech, Dr. Oz talks about the medical and psychological aspects of dealing with a large-scale shooting. Dr. Oz's wife, Lisa, also weighs in on the discussion as people around the world look for ways to prevent similar crimes in the future.
Dr. Oz says during his time as an intern at a New York hospital, he dealt with numerous shooting victims at once in what was then the murder capital of the country. Dr. Oz says working on people with pistol wounds is common in the ER, but the wounds suffered by the victims at Virginia Tech are not. "One of the doctors was quoted as saying there was not a single shooting victim who had less than three bullet wounds in them."
While dozens of victims could not be saved, Dr. Oz says he was impressed with the story of one student who was shot during the massacre but saved his own life with training he had learned as an Eagle Scout. "The young man saved his life by tying an electrical cord around his leg," Dr. Oz says. "The injury on the surface may not have looked that bad, but deep down it had damaged a major artery." Without the electrical cord as a makeshift tourniquet, Dr. Oz says the student's artery may have hemorrhaged, emptying all the blood in his body in one minute.
As the nation looks for answers in the days and weeks to come, Lisa says coping with this tragedy will not be easy. "I do think that assimilating what we have experienced into some kind of meaning is part of our journey," Lisa says. "But I don't know how, with something like this, you make it meaningful."
Dr. Oz says showing compassion and love and making peace with someone you don't like could help prevent violent crimes such as this from happening again. "There is a chance that that person who has irritated you so much—who has made you detest them—may have issues going on in their life," Dr. Oz says. "Maybe the way they act out to make you dislike them is actually them crying out for help."
