Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse nightclub massacre on June 12, 2016. It contains sensitive and difficult to read content.
Nichole Elinoff is the sexual minority coordinator at the Florida Department of Health, working in HIV prevention within the GLBT community. At the time of the Pulse Nightclub massacre she served at the GLBT Center as director of clinical services.
The entire state of Florida does not have sex education. Each county handles the subject differently. Central Florida, is 6th in the country for HIV infections. Florida as a whole is number 1 in the country for new HIV cases. All of the top 10 highest HIV infection rates are from counties in the the south. Miami Dade, Florida is Number 1 and Baton Rouge, Louisiana is number 2.
Nichole was in South Florida when the Pulse Nightclub shooting happened. Sunday morning June 16, 2016 at 8am she got a call from the board president of the Center. Since she was asleep, she didn’t immediately pick up. She kept getting calls and texts. The first text she read was “are you OK?” Someone else knew she was in South Florida and said she was safe. On Facebook she saw the black Pulse logo and the rainbow. She couldn’t believe what she was reading. She called the Center and made arrangements to get back to Orlando.
She drove back to Orlando that day in record time. She went to the Center for the press conference. Her husband brought donuts. The Center was packed with board members, community members. She hugged everyone. The mental health counseling effort was already being coordinated. The HIV testing program had to be shut down that week since there was so much going on.
A dear friend was the lead HIV test counselor that she worked with at the center. She was trying to call him constantly throughout that day. The week before he had been at Latin night at Pulse. She couldn’t reach him. He finally called back while she was at the Center and she broke down and cried. He wasn’t at Pulse on the night of the massacre.
Monday morning she helped coordinate the media response. She updated the Facebook pages. She looked at the Go Fund Me that the Center created and helped maintain that site. She coordinated her staff of volunteers to bring water to the blood donation sites. Lines of people were standing in the sun and they needed water.
When the Orlando United Assistance Center opened at Camping World Stadium, she set up a table with two other staff members. They interacted with the families of victims and survivors. They found out what their needs were and they passed out gift cards. She brought gift cards and supplies to her team.
Testing returned to the Center after that first week. It was a challenging couple of months after Pulse. One of her staff decided he needed to go into victim advocacy. He was hired at the Orlando Assistance Center. After he left she needed to do his job as lead tester, as well as her own until she could find someone to fill his position. She organized some training with the Red Cross for her volunteer staff to talk about dealing with grief, and how to look for trauma.
People they were testing mentioned that they were taking more chances like sex without condoms, more drinking and more substance use because they may have lost friends or someone they knew. They were trying to cope. After a tragedy people tend to take more chances. They want to feel safe and unprotected sex can become a problem.
There was no HIV support group for Spanish speakers so she wrote a grant to help get one started.