She is lauded for her heroism. But Sr Diane Seale says when she hugged a gun-wielding patient who shot three people minutes before she arrived at New Somerset Hospital’s (NSH) surgical ward, she saw the person and “wasn’t focused on what he had done or might still do”.
When Seale reported for duty on Saturday 7 May never could she have predicted that she would have to disarm a patient at the start of her 12-hour shift.
Seale was busy with her routine handover process on Saturday evening when a call was received by a colleague in distress.
“I could hear her screaming and my colleague who had answered the phone informed me that there was an altercation on the second floor.”
Not knowing the extent of the traumatic event, she was about to face, Seale told her colleague that she should carry on with her work while Seale would attend to it.
“As I entered the second floor, I noticed a body on the floor in the corridor, but my eye caught the patient with the gun in his hand. I proceeded to walk straight to him and made eye contact. I walked towards him, and I hugged him. I escorted him into the cubicle. He told me to close the door. That also allowed our staff to then attend to the policeman who had been shot. I felt I could calm him down a bit.
She says although she noted two patients had been shot and killed, there were still two patients that were alive that she needed to save.
“I kept him seated, standing in front of him, so that these patients were kept out of harm’s way.”
Seale shared how her focus and energy remained solely on the patient. She continuously made eye contact with him.
“I kept on telling him that we needed to talk. I dealt with him as a person. I wasn’t focused on what he had done or might still do. I asked him, ‘What happened?’ I reached out and touched him, and he allowed me to. This gave me confidence and I knew that he trusted me. He looked at me while my hands were still on his shoulders and said, ‘You are brave, you are the only one that has come in here’, at this point, all I wanted to do was to keep him focused and calm.”
Seale recalls she asked him several times to put the gun down.
“I took him to my chest, held him close and he again allowed me to hold him. At least I knew there was this rapport between us.”
During this exchange Seale was first unaware that the tactical unit had arrived and were armed and ready outside the cubicle doors.
“My main goal was to isolate him away from other staff and patients. He eventually agreed, and while remaining seated I moved to the cubicle doors and then became aware that the tactical team were outside. I believed that I had some control over the situation. There were some moments the perpetrator and I engaged in conversation, and I could even crack a joke. If he spoke to me, I allowed him that opportunity, but I would always come back to the request to put the gun down.”
She says during their conversation she assured him that her role was to save lives. It was her calm demeaner that eventually made the perpetrator surrender.
“During our exchanges I lifted his face and said, do you see this uniform, I am here to save life and limb. Eventually he agreed for me to sedate him. Through it all, I sat with him, stroking his forehead until he was finally sedated. At this point I could call the tactical team to subdue him. When I walked out, everyone was there. My team was there and safe. This gave me that encouragement I needed to push on.”
Despite having just encountered this traumatic experience, Seale immediately engaged with her team and embarked on debriefing the nurses as well as patients. Metropolitan counselling services, Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital psychosocial support and the Western Cape Health and Wellness team were all on site to offer support.
“Through it all my main concern was that our patients were to be settled.”
Prof Roger Dickerson, Head of the Emergency Centre clinical unit at NSH, praised the nursing team for their professionalism, dedication and of humanity they portrayed.
Dickerson also thanked the EC staff that responded to the calls in the ward, and attended to the victims who needed care, the anaesthetic staff who assisted with the stabilisation, Disaster Management, EMS, the hospital’s porters who assisted.
Seale says as a team they acted on divine intervention.
“Prayers and God got us through this. That is part and parcel of us and nurses, no matter how traumatic the event, when you are in that moment, you do what must be done. Yes, it’s something big, but it did not take Diane alone, it took a team to bring this whole thing together.”
