Michelle Obama visits Aurora theater shooting victims in hospital
First Lady Michelle Obama made a surprise visit Saturday to a hospital in Aurora, Colo., where she met victims wounded in last month’s shootings at a premiere screening of”The Dark Knight Rises.”
At the Medical Center of Aurora, Obama thanked doctors, nurses and staff who took care of some of those wounded in the July 20 attack. She also met with some of the shooting victims and their families, including one of the two patients who remain in the intensive care unit.
Police say James E. Holmes, 24, opened fire during a midnight screening of the new Batman movie, killing 12 people and wounding 58. Holmes faces 142 criminal charges, including 24 counts of first-degree murder.
In the hours following the shooting, 18 patients were sent to the emergency room at the Medical Center of Aurora with wounds to the head, neck, torso and legs.
About 50 people gathered in a conference room to meet Obama, the Denver Post reported. She shook hands with each of them and listened to stories about the night of the attack.
From the hospital, Obama headed to Denver for a fundraiser for her husband’s reelection campaign.
Two days after the shooting, President Obama visited another medical facility, the University of Colorado Hospital, which also treated some of the victims. Upon leaving the hospital, he quoted from the Bible, Revelation 21:4:
“Scripture says that ‘He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’”
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