When the 911 calls came in late in the morning on Dec. 16 of last year, the reports were conflicting. Was it a swatting incident? A false alarm? A burst pipe?
It was none of those things.
Multiple people were shot at Madison’s Abundant Life Christian School.
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“Everyone dropped what they were doing to rush to that school,” said Jimmy Imhoel, a Madison police officer who now works as the department’s emergency management lieutenant. “Lunches were half-eaten, reports were half-typed.”
A 15-year-old student had opened fire in a mixed-grade study hall, killing 14-year-old Rubi Vergara and 42-year-old teacher Erin West. Six other people were injured, two of them critically.
The shooter died by suicide. Her father now faces criminal charges after prosecutors say he gave her access to two handguns that she brought to school that day.
It’s been one year since that incident at the private school on Madison’s east side, which serves students from prekindergarten through 12th grade. Hundreds of first responders and medical professionals pitched in during the aftermath of the violence.
Twelve months later, those workers are dealing with complicated feelings as they navigate the tragedy’s one-year mark.
Among them are Madison paramedics Joe Parrillo and Brandon Schulz.
“There’s no amount of training that you can receive that will prepare yourself for what you’re going to see when you came on scene to that call,” Schulz said. “It was the most law enforcement presence I’d ever seen in my life. There had to have been 20 to 30 law enforcement vehicles there at that time.”
After being in the first transport ambulance to arrive at the school, Parrillo and Schulz knew they needed to treat the surviving patient who was in the worst shape. That was 17-year-old Samy Garduno-Martinez, who was awake but confused after sustaining multiple bullet wounds.
“My exact words were, ‘That’s my guy, We’re taking him.’” Parrillo said. “And it still rings true today. Samy is my guy.”
Samy was rushed to UW Health’s American Family Children’s Hospital, where he immediately underwent surgery to his brain and abdomen.
Dr. Adam Brinkman performed one of those surgeries. He remembers walking into the operating room after learning there had been a mass shooting.
“I felt sick to my stomach,” Brinkman said. “I felt sad. I felt angry. I felt in shock. I felt like the worst dream in the world was coming true.”
Another critically injured boy, then-14-year-old River Clardy, also underwent multiple surgeries. River had several gunshot wounds, including one to his neck that was causing blood to obstruct his airway. In the minutes after the shooting, paramedics inserted a breathing tube — one of several actions that likely saved River’s life.
Eventually, River was released from the hospital in late January.
But Samy’s injuries were even more serious. By mid-January, his health was improving and he was upgraded to “good” condition. But after months in the hospital, Samy suffered inflammation of his brain and was put into a medically-induced coma.
During that time, Parrillo and Schulz, the paramedics who transported Samy to American Children’s, kept asking for updates.
While Samy was in the hospital, Parrillo went to Samy’s high school graduation ceremony and met his family.
Parrillo has been a Madison paramedic for nearly a decade. He’s seen some heartbreaking scenes.
But he feels a connection to Samy that’s unlike anything else he’s experienced in his career.
“There’s a sense of innocence to that as being a child, or a sense of innocence of a school,” Parrillo said. “You want to protect children as much as you can.”
Samy turned 18 while he was still in the hospital. For the past several months, he has been undergoing rehab at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Chicago. After suffering brain damage, the former cross-country runner is working to re-learn tasks like walking and speaking.
The Clardy and Garduno-Martinez families declined to be interviewed for this story.
Samy Garduno-Martinez’s family shared this video on Facebook of him speaking on Oct. 9, 2025.
For Brinkman, the pediatric surgeon, Dec. 16 will always be a somber day. On that date one-year later, Brinkman plans to go for a run so he has time to reflect.
“There are still those moments, those seconds in time, that are ingrained in my mind,” Brinkman said. “I have to think about those and deal with those. I can’t suppress them.”
Brinkman remembers preparing for surgery, and worrying that he would find one of his own two children bleeding out on the operating table. At the time, Brinkman had heard about a shooting at a local school, but didn’t know where exactly it had taken place.
When Samy was brought in, Brinkman didn’t think the teen’s injuries were survivable.
While Brinkman operated on Samy’s abdomen, two neurosurgeons were operating simultaneously on his brain, with a blue curtain separating the two surgical teams. Brinkman remembers holding Samy’s liver in his hands as he worked alongside nurses and scrub techs to try and stanch the bleeding.
The months that followed brought even more memories. Brinkman remembers the optimism of Samy and his parents, and how often they thanked their son’s medical providers.
Brinkman remembers Samy being a playful teen, who would play tricks on the nurses by hiding his dressings.
He remembers how much Samy loved citrusy fruit, and how Samy’s mother brought fresh limes and lemons into her son’s hospital room.
One year after the tragedy, Brinkman hopes he never has to respond to another school shooting.
“I don’t think that the answer is to take guns away,” Brinkman said. “But the answer is absolutely to keep kids safe with gun control measures and (by) keeping guns safely stored in locked boxes with bullets and guns kept separately.”
The Abundant Life shooting was one of 83 school shootings that unfolded in the U.S. in 2024, according to a CNN database.
Dr. Megan Gussick hoped Madison would never be a part of that statistic, although she had trained for the possibility.
Gussick is an emergency medicine physician at UW Health. She also serves as the medical director for the Madison Fire Department, and she oversaw the emergency response to the ALCS shooting.
“Our kids deserve better,” Gussick said. “It doesn’t matter what political side you’re on. This is not OK, and we need to do better for our kids.”
For hours after the Abundant Life shooting, Gussick was swamped. She didn’t have time to be alone with her thoughts until she drove to her son’s day care.
“I got in my car to go pick up my kid, and I just lost it, because it was a really heavy day,” Gussick said.
When River and Samy were finally let out of the hospital, Gussick made sure the first responders who treated them were there.
“There’s images in their brains that they will never be able to remove, and one of those images is River and Samy, literally dying in front of them,” Gussick said.
Parrillo, one of the paramedics who first loaded Samy into an ambulance, was there for Samy’s release.
Hospital staff blew bubbles and waved streamers as Parrillo wheeled Samy out.
“I said, ‘Hey, man, I brought you in here 295 days ago, and I’m going to bring you out,’” he recalled.
Parrillo can’t forget what he saw inside the school that day. But he also has new images to think about — like Samy’s smile and the bubbles floating in the air when he left the hospital.
If you are in crisis, call or text the suicide and crisis lifeline at 988. Resources are available online here.
To reach the Wisconsin school safety hotline call 1-800-697-8761 or Text “SUSO” to 738477 to report a tip.
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