‘This blood will stain me forever.’ Photo of Orlando doctor’s bloodied shoes goes viral
Dr. Joshua Corsa had just bought a new pair of Keens, a brand favored for their sturdiness by people who like to rough it in the great outdoors.
He wore those new shoes on a horrific day at work on Sunday, treating the victims of the Orlando mass shootings.
Corsa, a senior resident in the surgery department at Orlando Regional Medical Center, left the shoes at the hospital, next to a pile of dirty scrubs, after tending to the terrified, broken victims from Pulse nightclub.
He posted a photo of his blood-stained shoes to his Facebook page on Monday with an emotional essay about what they mean to him. In less than 24 hours the post had been shared more than 328,000 times. The post has since disappeared from his page, but not before going viral.
At times like these this one #doctor words give us all #hope. #humanityunite #JoshuaCorsa #orlando https://t.co/cpZfmikhiM
— barbara kelso (@bakelso) June 13, 2016
Thank God for people like Joshua Corsa. https://t.co/nGnNcntbmg
— Loree Lough (@LoreeLoughAutho) June 13, 2016
“These are my work shoes from Saturday night,” Corsa wrote, according to KTRK TV in Houston.
“I had forgotten about them until now. On these shoes, soaked between its fibers, is the blood of 54 innocent human beings. I don't know which were straight, which were gay, which were black, or which were Hispanic. What I do know is that they came to us in wave upon wave of suffering, screaming, and death. And somehow, in that chaos, doctors, nurses, technicians, police, paramedics, and others, performed super human feats of compassion and care.
“This blood, which poured out of those patients and soaked through my scrubs and shoes, will stain me forever. In these Rorschach patterns of red I will forever see their faces and the faces of those that gave everything they had in those dark hours.”
He wrote that he will continue to wear those shoes at work until the last shooting victim has left the hospital.
Then, “I will take them off, and I will keep them in my office. I want to see them in front of me every time I go to work. For on June 12, after the worst of humanity reared its evil head, I saw the best of humanity of come fighting right back. I never want to forget that night.”
One woman who read Corsa’s words on Facebook wrote: “That is the most powerful thing I have ever read on Facebook. Brought me to tears! God bless all those involved.”
This story was originally published June 14, 2016 at 6:04 PM with the headline "‘This blood will stain me forever.’ Photo of Orlando doctor’s bloodied shoes goes viral."