After Pulse: Kathy DeVault

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Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse Nightclub Massacre on June 12, 2016. It may contain sensitive and difficult to read content. Post written with narrator’s consent.  

Kathy DeVault is director of strategic partnership for the City of Orlando. She directed Camping World Stadium as it acted as a hub for victims families and survivors in the aftermath of the Pulse Shooting.

On June 11, 2016 Kathy was celebrating a college friend’s birthday. Her friend is very involved in the LGBTQ community. She loves to dance and many of her friends are gay men. She wanted a low key evening with five of her friends that night. They went to a desert shop in Ivanhoe Village. It as a relaxed evening with wine and desert.

The next morning about 4AM, the chief of staff, sent about 10 staff a text message that there was an active shooter  at Pulse and Mayor Buddy Dyer was on scene. Details were scarce. Her response was “I am here and will stay out of the way until I am needed.” She watched the news unfold that morning on TV.

She finally got a call from the deputy chief of staff that she was needed. She ran to city hall to get ear phones for the mayor. She parked near Chipolte south of Pulse and got through the barricades to get thing on scene. A lot of politicians were on site for the press conference and it happened to be an election period. Kathy was called to the scene too help greet and cater to the elected officials that were showing up. The mobile command center was a little south of Pulse.

At dusk the press conferences were over and city staff went to the emergency operations center. Kassandra, the press secretary, was overwhelmed by media inquiries, so Kathy decided to become her right hand woman. She spent the next several days answering calls from national and in international media. Media ascended so quickly because just the night before that had been covering the singer Christina Grimmie shooting at the Plaza in Orlando.

Later that week Kathy helped set up the Family Unification Center in the Beardal Senior Center. That is where families went to get updates form the hospital and FDLE about their loved ones. Media largely took over the parking lot and they got in the faces of family trying to get n and out of the center. The FBI and red cross wanted a more secure location. The decision was made to use Camping World Stadium. A city lead was needed. Kathy as recruited. A list of about 35 to 40 agencies was compiled who would become a part of the family assistance center. The Center needed to be open for families by 10 AM the next morning. Well, OK!

After Pulse: Sherri Monroe

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Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse Nightclub Massacre on June 12, 2016. It may contain sensitive and difficult to read content. Post written with narrator’s consent.  

Sherri Monroe is the executive director of the Red Cross of Greater Orlando. The red cross provided immediate services to first responders and victims families in the aftermath of the Pulse massacre.

At that time she was stationed in Daytona. On the Sunday morning following the shooting she turned on the news. Shootings are pretty common in any city, but the numbers were shocking. This wasn’t some kind of altercation. She stated to get a feeling of the scope of what was going on. You don’t expect something like that to happen in your area.

She knew Red Cross would be responding but se  wasn’t part of the Orlando branch. Red Cross was one of the first organizations on the scene other than first responders. Their roll initially was supporting first responders. It’s summer its hot, so we provided water, snacks and food.

What Red Cross did in this situation is sort of similar to hat the FBI did. No matter how prepared Orlando Police might have been, they were not prepared for this. The FBI knew what to do because they have seen this all before. Red Cross sort of did that on the community side. Within 24 hours people were on the ground here who had been through Sandy Hook, and other mass shooting events. They had seen this before. A local church immediately provided their address as a family assistance center. Red Cross stepped in to say ‘Look this isn’t going to work.’ It was fine for the moment, but there was no way to keep the families protected. That was part of the reason Camping World Stadium became an assistance center. They could set up all the resources from all the different agencies. But most importantly they had a fence around it. They could let the families in and close the gates to keep media and curiosity seekers out.

The Red Cross worked closely with the city to help them figure out what they needed to do next. They also let then know what was coming. You have to stay in front of the situation. It is hard to come back from behind. The following week with all of the vigils, and all of the events, the Red Cross brought in a lot of mental health counselors that could be at those events. They also provided water and simple things like that. The city had set up a 242-7 call line out of the Emergency Operations Center (EOC), but they didn’t have enough people to man it. The Red Cross ran it for them. Sherri was responsible for keeping enough volunteers on the lines. People might call if they could not locate someone, or their car was stuck in the area around Pulse which was locked down, or a call might be about how to transport a body back to Puerto Rico. Mental health counselors were available to talk to the people taking the phone calls. Some calls were challenging.

After Pulse: Andria Estrella – Roa

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Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse Nightclub Massacre on June 12, 2016. It may contain sensitive and difficult to read content. Post written with narrator’s consent.  

Andria Estrelle – Roa is a mental health counselor. She has been a volunteer counselor to victims families and survivors of the Pulse Nightclub massacre that happened n June 12, 2016.

For the sake of self care Andria seldom watches the news but something compelled her to turn it on June 12, 2016 at about 8AM. The camera panned bu a white van and there was concern about possible explosives. The news said that 15 people had died.

She had a meeting with an intern. At 9 AM in the meeting she looked at the news again. At that point the number was 25. A friend texted and said that a mutual friend was at the club. She started calling and texting him and she could not reach him. She called and texted his dad. He hadn’t hear anything. By about 10 or 11 AM the number of people who had died had once again climbed. By 11 AM all the One Blood trucks were out at the local churches.

She spoke with a colleague and they agreed that they had to do something. They agreed to offer free counseling. They sent out a post. They still weren’t fully aware of the scope of hat had happened. Because this affected the LGBTQ community, they offered three free counseling sessions that Sunday to anyone affected. Estrella then got in touch with the Center which was coordinating all the crisis counselors. By the end of that day on Sunday she had found out that her friend was OK.

Monday, she went to the Unitarian Church since it was designated a s a counseling site. She did one crisis counseling session that night with someone who walked in. He had been at Pulse the night of the shooting and escaped. Tuesday night she found out the Citrus Bowl was going to be outfitted as a response center. She was tying to get on the list to help at the Citrus Bowl. Bi-lingual therapists were in short supply. Wednesday morning she went to the Citrus Bowl. She wasn’t on the list but made her way inside.

There was a welcome area for the families and survivors. In a closed room all the providers were set up. The Mexican and Colombian consulates were there, the Puerto Rican chamber of commerce, DCS, The Center, Major Airlines to provide free flight for families, the State Attorney, any and every social service and governmental agency was there. It was mind boggling. It made me proud to be from Orlando. Crisis Counselors were on the next floor up. Disney had donated plush Mickey Mouses for the children and survivors held them as well. This should not have happened here. This is the happiest place in the world.

Families were not going upstairs so she went downstairs and joined the Center where she could talk to people. She was at the Citrus Bowl Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Anybody who was at Pulse that night, would be eligible for victims compensation. Immediate family members of the 49 would also be eligible for the compensation as well which would provide up to $10,000 worth of mental health counseling.   The family would have to pay first and then submit the receipt to the state. That seemed a stressful way to offer help. The family would only get 66.67% of the reimbursement from the state. That is just stupid.

She found out that she could become a state vendor and she could charge the state on behalf of the client. The client would not have too  pay her. Families and survivors never had to pay. In the first two to three weeks no one sought help. People were in shock. They tried to return to life as normal to ignore what had happened. In July she was flooded with sessions. Those who got out of the club without physical wounds had emotional wounds. They went back to work and found out they could not return to life as normal.

In July she was seeing about 20 Pulse survivors a week for two to three months consistently. She began seeing the physically injured as well. The emotionally injured could process and return to life withing the two or three month sessions. They might have family support, friend support which helps in recovery. Estrella never tells her clients that they have to get over things. She helps her clients live in a new reality. They learn to appreciate that they got our and survived and can write a new story. Physically injured survivors came months later. Most of those were in home visits. They were so focused on their physical recover that there emotional recovery took a back seat. They were relatively fine with family and community support and media interviews. But eventually they could not sleep any more. Their emotional injuries were left untended as they recovered physically. Healing does not happen quickly.

 

 

Jim Coffin After Pulse

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Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse Nightclub Massacre on June 12, 2016. It may contain sensitive and difficult to read content. Post written with narrator’s consent.  

Jim Coffin is from the Interfaith Council of Central Florida. Jim is an interfaith community leader. The interfaith Council began over 30 years ago as the National Conference of Christians and Jews. Jim has been the director of the Interfaith Council since 2011.

June 12 is Jim’s oldest sons birthday. Jim and his wife had planned a trip to Atlanta Georgia for about 8 days. His daughter in law worked for a hotel chain, so they had a great room deal. When they heard the the news of the Pulse shooting they had to decide if they would actually go. Perhaps he could help from Atlanta. They realized it was a time to put aside all personal things. He had to focus on where the need was which was Orlando.

Jim immediately looked to see what he could do. He realized an interfaith prayer service would be needed. Monday night there was an interfaith service at Saint James Cathedral. There was Muslim representation, Jewish representation, it was quite diverse. Tuesday the First United Methodist offered their church for a service. The minister had a close connection with the LGBTQ community. They did a reading of the names of those who were killed. They had a picture of each person. Someone would stand and read details about the person and then put the picture on display at the front of the church. About 600 people attended.

When Camping World Center opened, they had every imaginable service available. It was impressive. They had travel for bringing in relatives for funerals. Airlines were giving free passage and accommodations. Intimidate cash was available. There were 30 different services like that. There was no problem getting mental health counselors. The Catholic Church had a big part on spiritual counseling. The city called and said they need pastoral counselors who are gay sensitive. Jim put out the word. That involved lots of calls from around the country and even outside the country.

Because the gunman claimed he was Muslim, there were backlash concerns in the local Muslim community and law enforcement. Jim became involved in lots of meetings with law enforcement along with other faith leaders. When Obama cam he wanted to meet with faith leaders so Jim helped line up faith leaders who could be available at the given time. On top of that it could be that nothing happens and the meeting with Obama didn’t happen. The attorney General also came down and he was asked to find faith leaders. That meeting as well didn’t come off. It is a lot like a metaphor for life, it often doesn’t come off like it is supposed to.

7PM June 12, 2021 at Pulse

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June 12, 2016 is he day 49 people died while dancing at a Pulse Latin Night celebration. At 7PM on June 1, 2021 a Remembrance Ceremony was held at the club which is still standing and surrounded by a temporary memorial wall covered in photos.

The event was to be telecast on the jumbo trons at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts front lawn as well. Concerned about crowds I considered sketching from the front lawn but decided to sketch at the club instead. est Esther Street was shut down being blocked by a pink Lynx bus. Suburban side street were shut down for blocks, and police cars blocked traffic driving north on Orange Avenue as well, effectively securing the site from any fringe lunatics.

Folding chairs were set up in the street intersection and the stage was on the North West corner of Esther and Orange. All the seats were occupied when I got there so I walked around looking for a safe spot to sketch from somewhat removed from the crowd. I settled on sketching from behind the media cameras which were set up in a line in the Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot across the street from the club.

I couldn’t hear much from my vantage point but I did hear the names of the 49 victims being read. It was brutally hot and the remembrance was over just before the sun set.

2:02AM June 12, 2021 at Pulse

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Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse Nightclub Massacre on June 12, 2016. It may contain sensitive and difficult to read content.

2:02AM June 12, 2016 is when the gunman opened fire inside the Pulse Nightclub killing 49 and injuring many more.The effects of that horrific massacre rippled outwards.

At this vigil held at 2:02AM I cold her a woman sobbing across the street as I set up to sketch.  I began sketching an hour before the vigil began. The crowd as light at first with groups of people seated on the circular benches near the temporary memorial wall covered with photos. LED lights illuminated the wall with each color of the rainbow in succession. I chose blue. A red blood drive bus was parked across Orange Avenue.

Pastor Terri Steed Pierce from Joy Metropolitan Community Church spoke to those gathered but I couldn’t hear her from where I was seated. Candles were handed out and lit. Then a group of about 6 people read out the names of the 49 who had died that night. Since I was removed from the crowd I wore my mask loosely around my neck.

An FBI agent told Pam that a copycat extremist named Muhammed Momtaz Al-Azhari, 23, of Tampa had come to this memorial site about a year ago and sat looking for inspiration to carry out a similar attack on beaches around Tampa. Al-Azhari “expressed admiration” for the gunman responsible for the Pulse nightclub shooting and “spoke of his desire to carry out a similar mass casualty shooting.”He wanted to kill more that 49 people. When he purchased guns to carry out the attack he was actually buying from an FBI agent and was arrested. At this year’s 5 year vigil there was concern that extremists might want to attack. Plain clothes security was scattered throughout the crowd. Pam watched every car that drove by and instructed me just run should anything happen. Thankfully it was a peaceful beautiful service with love compassion and caring.

Ida Eskamani: After Pulse

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Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse Nightclub Massacre on June 12, 2016. It may contain sensitive and difficult to read content. Post written with narrator’s consent.  

Ida Eskamani is formerly from Equality Florida, she went on to work with Representative Smith’s office as chief of staff.

Equality Florida was born at a time when no one was investing in the south when it came to LGBTQ rights. The founders felt if they build it they will come. The organization was launched 20 ears ago. There is nothing else like it. It was grass roots funded.

Ida got back from vacation on June 11, 2016, the day before the shooting at Pulse. It was the first vacation she had taken in 10 years. At 3AM she woke up from the jet lag. There were a lot of notifications on her phone. It looked like a shooting but she wasn’t aware of the severity of what was unfolding. She sent an e-mail to staff to let them know what was happening. She drifted back to sleep. When she woke up again, it was 6AM. That is when she realized this was something much more horrific. She lives about 2 miles from Pulse and she could hear helicopters overhead. The TV stayed on all day.

For the next three weeks she didn’t sleep. She was working non stop. She may never again feel the the way she did that Saturday night before Pulse happened. The first text she got from Equality Florida was to ask if all the staff were OK. All 5 staff in the Orlando area were OK. At 9AM there was a staff conference call. They agreed to draft a statement and make people aware of all the resources that were becoming available. They decided they needed to launch a fundraising page. Donors were already coming to the organization.

She wasn’t sure what roll she could play and she had to go to an event in Jacksonville Florida. Around 11AM she realized the no one had created the Go Fund Me Page yet, so she did it. She had never launched a Go Fun Me Page before. She wanted to connect it to Equality Florida’s page. But you can not connect it to a page, it has to be a person. She put a goal of $100,000. It was clear that there would be major gaps in support and anything Equality Florida could do, they wanted to do.

On the road to Jacksonville, Her boss was driving and she was checking her laptop and found her e-mail was flooding with messages. People were asking if the fundraising page was real. As they were driving she updated the description on Go Fund Me. She responded to everyone letting them know it was real and any contribution would help. By the time the Jacksonville event was over they had already hit the goal of $100,000 so they upgraded the goal to $200,000. Then it increased to $500,000 and then to 1 million. It just kept growing. It was the fasted page to reach 1 Million in Go Fund Me’s history. It was the first ever to reach 2 Million. It raised 7.8 million. Offline an additional 1.2 Million was raised. About 9.5 Million dollars were raised in total. Those donations came from 120 countries and over 120,000 people. It became known as the Pulse Victims Fund.

She suddenly had to field tons of press interviews. Press was never ending. During the dark time she would read the comments on the Go Fund Me Page where people expressed love and warmth. A little kid donated from a bakery sale to celebrities. All these gay bars had fundraisers and donated to the page. It was so powerful. Equality Florida was not in charge of dispersing the funds. The goal was for the money to go directly to victim’s families and survivors.

Pilado After Pulse

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Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse Nightclub Massacre on June 12, 2016. It may contain sensitive and difficult to read content. Post written with narrator’s consent.  

Michael Pilado and Chimene Pinder-Hurst were interviewed in the History Center in the One Year Later exhibit space about the Pulse Nightclub Massacre community response.

Michael believes that art should be about community and healing. He works with painter Yuriy Karabasch. When Pulse happened Mikael was working on a Mural in Williamsport Pennsylvania that had over 700 inspirational people depicted. That day he painted the Florida state bird which is the Mocking Jay. The Jay holds a stick with 5 strings with 49 orange blossoms. Members of the LGBT community came out to paint the orange blossoms.

Deborah Bidel the head of the post traumatic stress disorder program of UCF called and asked him to paint Juan Ramon Guerrero and Christopher “Drew” Leinonen together and put their names in it.

He then got a call from Chimene Hurst and she asked him if he could come to Orlando to do some of his healing projects. As she was calling, a hawk flew overhead and he saw it a a sign to come to Orlando. Yuriy and Michael for the last eight years have been traveling the world creating a series of murals which will connect on the internet becoming the world mural. Each mural’s title is Inspiration with the name of the place. Here he worked on Inspiration Orlando. When he got to Orlando he and Chimene went looking for wall, talking to many business owners. They found about 30 possible walls for murals.  They wanted to find 49 locations. They spoke with the LGBT community, the Latino community and with the city. In Orlando he developed the recipe for how to do the world mural.

Chimene and Michael were at the Dr. Phillips Center where thousands of objects were left on the front lawn for the 49 who had died. Chimene asked the 49 angels if they could guide them to where they should go next to make the project a reality. Immediately when she turned around she saw a friend. She asked her if she had any walls for a mural and Chuan said yes. They went up to a property on Mills and 50 to look at a possible mural site. Michael noticed an upstairs deserted space and asked about it. It had been abandoned for years but it would eventually become the art studio where mural panels were created. As they were looking at the property a hawk flew overhead. That hawk moved into a tree next to Avalon just as Michael moved into the art studio. Synchronicity and trust are what founded the project.

Juan and Drew were panted in front of Mathew Sheppard,  Drews mom entered the studio and asked why he had chosen to paint Drew in front of Mathew. He explained it was because of the composition. She told him a story, When Drew was younger he and his mom met Mathews mother. Drew was so impressed with ho open Mathews mom was about her son being gay that he decided it was time for him to come out to his mom.

Patience Carter was placed next to authors like Billy Manes. Patience Carter read a beautiful poem from her hospital bed about survivors guilt.  A heart with Jason Josaphat was right above her. Jason is the one who jumped in front of her, not even knowing her and took the bullets that took his life, saving her.

Months had gone by where they struggled to find a place for the mural but in that time Michaael had not picked up a brush. They were so lost in the planning that the creation had been pushed aside. Chimene told Michael, ‘Just start painting.’ He brought marine grade panels and started to piece together the mural in the studio. Rather than finding the wall and fitting the mural to the wall they started creating without concern about the final destination. Funding the project was a struggle, from cockroaches. leaky ceilings to termites to rats. Michael and Chimene funded what they could. The struggle has been a joy as well.

The mural is 36 feet by 12 feet. At the time of the interview Michael said there was one more month of work to be done on it. The plan for the big mural if the wall is available is that it would be 130 feet by 40 feet. Another connecting wall would be 100 feet by 24 feet. The large mural would have augmented reality elements that could be seen with cell phones. The first mural was done as a sketch so some figure sizes and proportions aren’t perfect. The final mural would be more refined. The possibilities are endless.

Pulse Survivor: Laura Vargas

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Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse Nightclub Massacre on June 12, 2016. It contains sensitive and difficult to read content. Post written with narrator’s consent.  

Laura Vargas survived the Pulse Nightclub Massacre that happened on June 12, 2016. Laura was at the club that night with Luis Vielma who was one of the 49 victims of the shooting.

Laura and Luis both worked at Universal Studios. Laura began working at Halloween Horror Nights at the Walking Dead House. Luis was transferred from the Disaster ride to Halloween Horror Nights. They hit it off and began hanging out together outside of work. Eventually Laura left Universal to work for her father’s accounting company in Miami.

Laura came back to Orlando From Miami for a Universal Studios awards ceremony. Luis didn’t have a date, so he invited Laura to be his for the ceremony. She got to Orlando on Friday June 10, 2016. On Saturday they went to Kiki’s for breakfast and then Artegon to go to a comic book store opening. She had a rewards voucher for Rainforest Cafe and so they had a fabulous dinner there.

A friend called her and asked if se would be interested in going dancing at Pulse that night. She hesitated, not having prepared for a night out. She asked Luis if he was up for it and he said, “Sure why not?” They got home, changed, and left about 11:30pm so it wasn’t going to be a very long night. On the way to the club Luis called another friend and invited him as well. They all got to the club about 12:15AMish.

It was a whole new world, there were people everywhere. The music was salsa and meringue. This could be a fun night. Laura got the first round. Luis would get the second round. They usually only get 2 drinks since there was driving involved. It was a fun night.

Luis was going to drive so Laura got her last drink about 2am. As she was putting her debit card back in her wallet she heard popping. People were running. Her view was blocked by a wall. She looked around the corner and saw a man reloading his gun. She ran back to Luis. She said to him, “This is for real, this isn’t part of the show, there is a man in here with a gun, what do we do?” He said, “Just keep your voice down and get on the floor and do as he says.” That is what they did.

Luis slid against the wall and let himself slide down, and hugged his legs and hid his face. As she was getting on the ground face first, she felt the first shot which entered her lower back and exited through her thigh. She fell with her whole body weight. She heard three more shots next to her. Luis was there as well as three other girls so she assumed they each had been shot. The pain was indescribable. She kept hearing screaming in Spanish, “Please god, what is this? Please don’t let him kill me, save me.” Within two minutes the room went silent with flashing lights. She could her the  gunman’s heavy footsteps and the occasional shooting.

She was moving on the floor trying to get comfortable when she felt footsteps approaching her again.  She felt a shoe standing next to her. Her body shook from a second shot which hit her mid right side of her back and it went straight through.  Her ears began to ring. She pretended to be dead since it was clear the gunman’s goal was to kill. When he walked away she managed to get her phone out and she called her ex. Her ex called back which could have drawn the gunman’s attention to them. With no answer, the ex stopped calling and later went to Pulse.

Laura then waited for voices of police. She prayed. It felt like an hour. She began to hear footsteps and heard “Alpha team go left.” She looked over her left shoulder, and she said “Please help me. “He gave her a signal to be quiet. The police then announced, “If there are any survivors that can get up and walk out, then go now.” About 8-10 people ran out. What remained was a sea of bodies. She couldn’t see Luis. An officer then said, “start taking out survivors.” Laura managed to flip over and get in the way of an officer. The female officer and another officer pulled Laura out. The female officer grabbed Laura’s wrists and she said, this is going to hurt very much but you need to stay quiet because the shooter is still in the building.” She was pulled through glass, blood, and vomit. Things cut her back as she was dragged. She was picked up and placed in the back of a pick up truck. She was asked to roll over to make room for another shooting victim who was limp and in very bad shape and the truck took off. An officer was hanging off the truck and he told the guy next to her “Don’t die on me, hang in there.” Her ex called on the truck ride and she was told by the officer that they were going to ORMC. That was the last she had her phone and wallet. She was holding on to her possessions so they could identify her body.

Six nurses took her into the hospital. They cut off her clothes and asked each other, “How many gun shots?” She realized she had not died at the club but realized she might die in the hospital as she waited for her turn in triage. She blacked out and woke up with doctors working on her again. She was taken to a room with several other patients from Pulse.

She heard popping again. She thought,  “He is coming back to kill the rest of us.”  A doctor said something like, ‘This is a code black, this is not a drill, do what you were taught and stay with your patients.” The curtains were closed, and doors locked. She asked a nurse to hold her hand. She was terrified. The shots were actually from the club which was just a few blocks south of the hospital.

She was in the hospital for 11 days with tubes and catheters. She could not eat or drink anything since her stomach had been shot. Therapy dogs were the only thing that could calm the pain and hunger. Pulse survivors were registered at the hospital with alias names so it was a challenge for family to get in.

The gun shots affected her small intestines, her stomach, and her liver. In surgery, a nurse grabbed her head and said, “It’s all right we are going to save your life, now count back from ten for me.” She was thankful that she would not feel any more pain. She woke up with a tube down her thought and saw her ex and her mom. Her hands were bound so she would not rip out the intubation tube. She signaled to a nurse that she wanted to write a note and she wrote, “where is Luis?’”She was told he was in surgery though no one knew where he was. She didn’t find out Luis had died until two days later when she had to go in for a second surgery. She had called a friend since she suspected the staff was keeping her in the dark. She asked her friend, “Have you heard from Luis?” Her friend let out a long sigh and said, “Has no one told you?” It was bad. Luis Sergio Vielma was one of the 49 lives taken on that horrible night.

Healthcare Heroes

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Beginning Monday, June 7, 2021, the Orange County Regional History Center (65 E. Central Blvd.
Orlando, Florida 32801) presents Healthcare Heroes: Portraits of Orlando Health’s Front line Workers, a group of thirteen large, stunning portraits by Central Florida-based artist Nelson Cárdenas that will be on display in the museum’s atrium through August 15, 2021.

Cárdenas, who is also a cook at the Orlando Health Dr. P. Phillips Hospital, created the portraits of Orlando Health employees using oil paints and a technique called pyrography, which uses blowtorches. His artwork honors and provides an intimate look at the community’s front line healthcare staff who have worked tirelessly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the opening, Nelson pulled out a scroll which he said was a list of what inspired him to do the project. He pointed out, that if inspiration were a switch, it would always be on. On the scroll was a long list of names of healthcare workers who had helped save lives for the past 12months during the COVID-19 pandemic. He said he was humbles to see his work on display at the History Center. As he put it, this was every artist’s dream.