BY GRETCHEN KEISER

Staff Writer

ATLANTA--Catholic chaplains at St. Joseph’s Hospital have been called upon to comfort and support friends, family members and co-workers of two people shot and critically injured at the day trading office of All-Tech Investment Group.

Chaplains Sister Sally White, GNSH, and Eileen Perkins were on duty July 29 when St. Joseph’s was one of the Atlanta hospitals to receive patients in critical condition from the shooting spree carried out by Mark O. Barton in two Piedmont Road office buildings. Nine people were killed and 12 wounded in two investment firms, one at 3500 and the other at 3525 Piedmont Road.

While teams of doctors and nurses worked on the two patients brought to St. Joseph’s, the chaplains first went to the assistance of Nell Jones, an All-Tech employee who witnessed the violence. Although Barton fired at her, the bullet missed. Jones had accompanied her friends to the hospital.

“She was, of course, very distressed because of all the friends that she had seen injured or die,” Perkins said, while, at the same time, “somehow, mysteriously, she was able to survive.” Five people were killed in the All-Tech office and four critically injured.

“We spent an hour with her, ministering to her,” said Sister White.

Jones also was trying to help the chaplains locate family members of the two injured All-Tech employees, identified as Scott Manspeaker, 27, and a 38-year-old woman, who has requested not to be named.

Manspeaker was shot in the abdomen and in the right arm, said Diana Lewis of St. Joseph’s media relations staff. Although a bullet passed through his abdomen and out his back, Manspeaker, who underwent four hours of surgery, was incredibly fortunate in that the path of the bullet missed vital organs and his spine, Lewis said.

The woman, who was shot in the face and in the chest, also underwent four hours of surgery and she cannot see.

Both remain in intensive care, but have been upgraded to fair condition as of Aug. 3. Sister Margarita Martin, ACJ, chaplain on their floor, is now assisting them.

“There is a lot of ministering now to their families. The mayor has come to the hospital to visit them. Prayers are still needed and they are still going on,” Sister White said.

The chaplains and chaplain intern Greg Pocock tried to cover the entrances to the hospital July 29 as friends of the injured began to arrive.

“It’s important they are ushered in as peacefully as possible,” said Sister White.

The chaplains’ role is a ministry of presence. “Once we get with family and friends, it is a matter of calming them down, being with them, being a facilitator,” the nun said.

One friend of the injured woman was particularly distraught, Perkins said. “We let her talk and tried to console her and I prayed with her for her friend.”

The ministry to relatives and friends “is mostly a matter of giving comfort by being present with them, holding them, listening to them, letting the friends cry,” she said, “reassuring them that we (are) going to do the very best for them.”

The two critically injured people were immediately surrounded by teams of doctors and nurses working on them, the chaplains said.

“Our emergency room does not handle a lot of that type of trauma,” said Sister White. “It was heartrending.”

“The whole scene was so traumatic that some of our nurses were deeply affected by this. We went back to our own staff (later) making sure they were all right and ministering to them. That continued throughout the night.”

A chaplain who came in for the night shift, Doyle Oliver, persuaded Lewis, who had been fielding media questions for eight hours, to let him answer calls in the middle of the night while she got a few hours’ rest.

Several hospital workers said they were struck by the teamwork of medical personnel and support staff in the crisis.

“It was breathtaking to watch the expertise and teamwork of the people,” said Sister White. “You might have 20 plus people in a room working on (the injured). The teamwork was marvelous. It is one of those moments you are proud to work here.”

The chaplains said they have also been affected by the traumatic events.

“It leaves you rather numb and certainly disturbed by that kind of random violence that you never are expecting,” said Perkins. “That was very hard for the witness and the friends to deal with. It was such a sudden thing. You feel sort of helpless.”

“I think as a department we are keeping them in our prayers and letting them know that we are praying for them. It is always before us.”

“It jars people into the reality of getting down on your knees,” Sister White commented. “You do get a sense that in spite of the suffering and the grieving and the sadness that the mystery of God is in there. That is what gets me through. That is what gets me through as a chaplain.”