Welcome to the Evolving Man Project's 'Evolved Man of the Week' profiles. Each week we will highlight an individual who embodies what it means to be an evolved man, famous and non-famous. The world needs to know their stories and deeds. This week's honor goes to the Uvalde native, pediatrician, and advocate, Dr. Roy Guerrero.
On May 24, 2022, a lone 18-year-old gunman entered his former school, where he once attended as a child. That school was Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas. That day the gunman slaughtered 19 students and two teachers. Police inaction led to more suffering as they waited over 77 minutes to engage the gunman strapped with an AR-15.
A community has been changed forever. Dr. Roy Guerrero Uvalde's lone pediatrician has been left to heal a devastated community for over a year after the tragic and horrifying events at Robb Elementary.
Dr. Guerrero was eating lunch that fateful day he received a text about a mass shooting. Dr. Guerrero rushed to the hospital, surrounded by FBI agents, Border Patrol, and police. A wall of parents screamed outside for their children. He lost multiple patients that day.
He described "the terror that still lives today in our community." Kids are terrified to go to school, and parents are afraid to drop them off. The 10-foot black fence that surrounds the school is a constant reminder of what happened.
It took this tragedy, he said, to realize how pediatricians are on the front line of what impacts parents and their children—that day also changed him, as he had identified the slain bodies of the children murdered with a weapon of war.
Dr. Guerrero, a 45-year-old Native Texan, believes in people's right to bear arms. He grew up farming and hunting with his family. However, after the tragedy at Robb Elementry, he advocated for sensible gun laws and banning the sale of war weapons to civilians. He's spoken across the nation and testified in front of Congress, advocating the protection of children and preventing another Uvadle from happening.
He still meets friends from grade school in town at the hospital where he first opened his practice in 2010. His kids call him Dr. G when they visit his local clinic. He's been left to help a community heal. Children who watched their friends get massacred, parents who are left with the grief of losing a child or knowing their child was in grave danger. A community that was torn apart by tragedy and still searching for answers.
Here are Dr. Roy Guerrero's words about the tragedy of that day:
"I want to clarify with this title that the school shooting victims weren't just the children that passed away on May 24," he said. "The victims (also) are our little community — the teachers, the students that survived, the aunts and uncles — everyone involved directly or indirectly on this horrible day."
We at the Evolving Man Project praise the great work of Dr. Roy Guerrero, even in the face of adversity and severe community-shared trauma. A doctor who takes their Hippocratic oath seriously and cares about his community and the kids who call it home. Even when that home no longer feels safe as it once did.
Today we honor Dr. Roy Guerrero as our Evolved Man of the Week.
No comments:
Post a Comment