NORFOLK, Va. — Hospitals in Hampton Roads are pushing for an end to gun violence.
On Friday, leaders and medical staff of Sentara Norfolk General Hospital and Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters gathered in Norfolk, alongside survivors of gun violence and victims' families.
"Just put the guns down," said gun violence survivor Tyquan Perry.
In July 2020, someone shot Perry in the neck in Norfolk's Young Terrace neighborhood. He's now paralyzed from the chest down.
“It don’t just affect the person that’s affected by it. It affects other people’s lives as well,” he said.
June 3 is National Gun Violence Awareness Day.
Perry and others shared their stories and thanked the hospital staff for their care.
"These shootings at our homes, places of worship, school buildings and on the streets repeatedly threaten our mental, physical and emotional wellbeing,” Perry said.
The crowd of roughly 50 people wore orange attire. The color became a national symbol for gun violence awareness following the 2015 shooting death of teenager Hadiya Pendleton in Chicago. Wear Orange Weekend takes place between Friday, June 3, and Sunday, June 5, to honor victims and raise awareness against gun violence.
"It's crazy. It's traumatizing. The experience is something you don't wish on nobody," said Melvin Ellis, who was shot on October 4, 2020.
That night, Ellis said he and his friends went to a Norfolk bar to celebrate his recovery from a prior motorcycle accident. He said someone shot him outside the bar.
"I was struck in my neck next to my spin and an artery," he said.
Through May, a Sentara Norfolk General Hospital spokesperson said medical staff treated more than 200 gunshot victims this year. In that same span, eight children were hospitalized for gunshot wounds at CHKD, according to officials.
Needra Adamson said a gunman killed her teenage son, Ahmajae, while coming home from school in October 2021.
“He was 14 years old," Adamson said. "And every day is a challenge. It never gets easy."
Adamson thanked the hospital staff at CHKD for trying to save her son and caring for her family.
Sentara Norfolk General and CHKD are Level 1 trauma centers, and both hospitals offer violence prevention programs with the goal of interrupting the cycle of gun violence.
The programs are federally funded. Sentara's program is called Foresight, and CHKD's program is called Safer Futures.