Detroit Lakes Native working at Las Vegas Hospital Jumps into Action during Shooting Crisis

Erica Nansen speaks out about the painful memories from Sunday night's shooting

LAS VEGAS — Erica Nansen is a Detroit Lakes native now working at University Medical Center in Las Vegas.

Nansen is speaking out about the painful memories from Sunday night’s shooting.

“I didn’t even fall asleep and all of a sudden I heard my phone ringing,” Nansen said. “It was just ringing off the hook and I was like ‘Oh my goodness what’s going on?’ So, I picked it up. It was work, so of course I’m nervous then because you don’t typically get work calls at that time. They just told me ‘Did you hear what happened?’ and I’m like ‘no’ and they’re like ‘we need you here.’ I said ‘I’m on my way.”

That is just the beginning of Nansen’s night.

Little did she know the University Medical Center where she works would soon be flooded with more than 100 victims.

That’s when Erica needed to jump into action.

“It wasn’t long before family members and friends started to come to the hospital just in shear panic,” Nansen said. “They didn’t even know if their loved one was at the hospital. They just knew they were at a hospital. They didn’t know if they were at UMC and they didn’t know what condition they were in. So that was my main role. My main priority was speaking with family members and the friends and figuring out ‘who are you looking for? Let me go see if I can find them.'”

Now two days later, Nansen said she’s sure of one thing: the pain and memories from that night will not be forgotten.

“I find myself just randomly breaking down,” Nansen said. “It’s just horrific. It’s so sad and so emotional I can’t even describe it. I can’t even put it into words. Speaking with the families, speaking with the patients, and not even just the physical wounds that they’re dealing with right now, but the long journey ahead of them dealing with the emotional, the mental, the PTSD. I just…I hurt for them.”

From surgeons to police officers, to random bystanders that jumped in to help, Nansen said she’s honored to have worked alongside some real heroes that night.