On an average night Penn Presbyterian trauma nurse Rhonda Browning will see one or two shooting victims, usually young black men who are getting younger and younger each year. 

When Browning began working as a trauma nurse nearly twenty years ago the shooting victims were adults in their twenties and thirties and now they’re mostly teenagers. A lot of them are still in braces and the first thing they all do is ask for their mom.

A single mother of five boys, Browning becomes a de facto parent to countless teenagers in her trauma bay, until their real family arrives. She holds their hands and whispers in their ear that they need to hold on. Browning recorded an audio diary for Philly Under Fire as she tried to save the life of one gunshot victim. As someone who bears witness to the effects of violence nearly every night, Browning has her own scars and wonders how she can help to solve this epidemic. Because make no mistake, the explosion of gun violence in Philadelphia in 2020 was absolutely a public health crisis. 

As our reporting makes clear in this episode, calling out the crisis as a public health issue only gets cities so far—to really move the needle, we need the kind of urgency that accompanies an epidemic, the kind we have seen mobilized for COVID-19 this year. We need more data, a sustained investment in programs with proven effectiveness and a true willingness from city officials to regularly bring all stakeholders to the table and cooperate across agencies.