Medical professionals are sharing bloody photos on social media showing the aftermath of gun violence after the National Rifle Association (NRA) warned them to “stay in their lane” last week.
“Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane,” the gun rights group warned medical professionals last week in a tweet that also linked to a blog post that criticizes the American College of Physicians over a recent paper on gun violence prevention.
{mosads}Droves of medical professionals immediately challenged the NRA with medical research about gun violence following the tweet.
Now many other medical professionals are sharing photos of them covered in blood to show the gun rights group what it’s like to treat shooting victims.
Robert Lyons, a cardiothoracic surgery fellow at the University of California, shared a photo of him wearing a mask splattered with blood on Twitter in response to the NRA, telling the organization “ThisISMyLane.”
“16 y/o GSW to the Aorta. @NRA his mother is in the waiting room,” Lyons wrote in a tweet. “Should you tell her he didnt make it? Didnt think so. #stayinmylane #ThisISMyLane”
“What the photo doesn’t show is the vast number of nurses, doctors, techs, [and] staff that poured their heart and soul into treating not only this victim of violence, but every victim that comes in,” Lyons later told Buzzfeed News in an interview.
Stephanie Bonne, an assistant professor of surgery in the division of trauma and critical care surgery at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in New Jersey, shared another photo showing a bloody hospital room in response to the NRA’s tweet, saying: “She didn’t make it.”
Kristin Gee, a general surgery resident at the Department of Surgery at UT Southwestern, also shared a photo of her wearing bloodied scrubs, tweeting, “To the @NRA, this is what it looks like to stay in #mylane. We will not be silent about the toll of #gunviolence.”
“I speak out for this patient, for their parents who will never be the same, for every person who came after this one and didn’t have to #thisiseveryoneslane,” Gee continued.
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published data indicating gun deaths rose in 2015-2016, shortly after a period of a few years in which gun-related deaths were declining.
Gun control legislation has become a national discussion following a string of mass shootings this year.