After Pulse: Coretta Cotton

Posted on by Thor

Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse nightclub massacre on June 12, 2016. It contains sensitive and difficult to read content.

Coretta Cotton is the assistant director at UCF Victim’s Services. After the Pulse nightclub shooting, UCF Victim’s Services provided advocacy to victim’s families and survivors as well as relief efforts to the UCF community as well.

Advocates are on call for a week at a time. She happened to be on call on the day of the shooting. The director called her around 6AM. Coratta was going to church but the director asked her to be aware that there had been a shooting in Orlando. At that time the number of dead was reported to be eight.

Coretta was asked to report to Orlando Regional Medical Center (ORMC). When she got to ORMC, the hospital was in lock down. There was no one in the bays. Initially ORMC didn’t know what to do with her. She was asked to go to a big room where they were holding the families and survivors who were waiting to hear something. Everyone was being checked in.

People who were injured but well enough to text loved ones were being re-united with their families upstairs. At some point, Coretta began to work with an agent from the FBI to do death notifications. There were nine notifications that had to be done. These nine were at the hospital, while most of the others were still at Pulse.

So Coretta along with some advocates from the Orange County Sheriffs office, worked with the FBI to do death notifications. Even then the number kept rising. It was 8 then it was 20 something and then it finally reached 49. Everyone was frantic to learn what was going on with their loved one.

A separate area was set aside to meet with the families. The officer from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) actually delivered the news. Advocates were on hand mostly for support. After the first or second family got the news people realized it would not be good to go to this meeting. There were a couple of families that only spoke Spanish but the Sheriff’s advocate could speak Spanish.

She was probably at ORMC from 7am to about 3:30pm. There was no break. The gravity of the day didn’t hit until she drove home. That level of grief is something she hopes she never has to face again on that scale.

Pulse Victims Services: Christine Mouton

Posted on by Thor

Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse nightclub massacre on June 12, 2016. It contains sensitive and difficult to read content.

Christine Mouton is the director of UCF Victims Services and the regional coordinator of the Florida Crisis Response Team for the 9th and 10th Circuit. After the Pulse tragedy UCF Victims Services and Florida Crisis Response Team provided aid to victim’s families and survivors.

Christine got a phone call about a shooting at Pulse.  She immediately called her on call advocate, and she directed her to go to the Orlando Regional Medical Center (ORMC). The advocate actually lives close to the medical center. She then proceeded to call her other staff. She managed to get three advocates down there. Then she called her community partners. She called an advocate from the sheriff’s office, she got contact information for the Victim’s Service Center which is a non-profit. They were able to provide some extra support.

An advocate helped identify the nine families who were destined to get the initial death notifications at ORMC. The doctor had to provide the death notification since he had witnessed the death, so a room was set up. Once families went in the room and came out traumatized it became very clear you did not want to go into that room. The advocate was put in charge of convincing families to go into the room. In those kind of moments people respond in terribly different ways. You can not predict how someone is going to respond. Some people just shut down, some are angry and aggressive, and you have to accept that. They have to come to accept the thing they never wanted to hear. Once the family heard the news, the advocates job then, is to provide families with the right options to empower them to make the best choices moving forward.