Capt. Charles J. Ussery, U.S. Army Medical Corps resident emergency physician at the Darnall Army Medical Center, was one of the medical personnel treating victims from the Nov. 5 mass shooting at Fort Hood. He is the son of Ann Walker, grandson of Lillian Starling, and the son-in-law of Tony and Cheryl Moore, all from Valdosta, he said.

On the day of the shooting, Ussery said he had just completed the Combat Casualty Care Course, which is required for all military health care professionals. The training is designed to prepare them for mass casualty incidents, such as an air disaster or Improvised Explosive Device (IED).

Ussery said he returned from the training to his home several hours away and had just taken off his boots when his trauma pager went off. He said he is frequently on call as part of his normal duties, so he wasn’t alarmed when his pager sent him an alert. Such alert drills are routine. This message was different, however. It alerted him to a mass casualty with over 30 injured.

“I will never forget the words the recording ended with: This is not a drill,” he said.

Ussery responded, still dressed in the same dirty uniform he wore during the field training course.

“We all answered the call from various places as fast as possible,” he said.

Ussery said the first wave of patients was already in the emergency room when he arrived at Darnall Army Medical Center.

After listening to the news reports during the drive there, he said he expected to find chaos, but when he stepped in through the long line of ambulances and the background noise of landing helicopters, he saw “doctors, nurses, paramedics, techs, chaplains and many more as far as I could see across the emergency department, all working at their assigned tasks as trained.”

More shooting victims kept coming in.

Ussery said he thought, Wow, this can’t be real. How many more can there be?

The seasoned, combat-experienced emergency and surgical physicians took the lead, working alongside the newer physicians like him, he said. He was assigned a bed number by the officer in charge and went to work.

Each patient seemed to have multiple injuries, he said, and there was a lot of blood. They normally work on a triage system, he said, in which the most critical patients receive treatment first, with other less serious patients waiting their turn.

Not on this occasion, however.

“Due to the overwhelming response of hospital personnel, all patients received treatment immediately. This coordination and quality care undoubtedly saved lives,” he said.

After the patients were all placed in the appropriate area, he said he was quickly reminded that he was assigned to the surgical wards and Intensive Care Unit for the month of November. Most of his contact with the shooting victims came during their hospital stay in the surgical wards and ICU.

Ussery said the Nov. 5 incident has shown him even more “the importance of not only our personal family and friends, but our Army family as well. Meeting the families, interacting daily and watching their amazing progress was the most rewarding experience of my career.”

Another memorable experience from that time, he said, was meeting President Barack Obama and the First Lady Michelle Obama at the bedside of a patient. The best experience by far, however, was seeing a victim of the incident get up and walk out the front door of the hospital, he said.

“I am forever proud of where I am from, my family, friends, the white coat I am trusted to wear, the flag I salute and the uniform I put on each day,” he said.

Ussery has wanted to help people and make a difference in the world, ever since he was a young child, said his mother, Ann Walker.

Ussery graduated from Valdosta’s Open Bible Christian School in 1993, received his Emergency Medical Technician certification in 1994 and Paramedic Technology certification in 1996 from Valdosta Technical College, earning the college’s highest award, the Georgia Occupational Award of Leadership (GOAL). He earned a Bachelor of Applied Science degree from Valdosta State University in 2004.

He has worked as a Paramedic at South Georgia Medical Center, for Georgia Baptist Life Flight out of Atlanta, and as clinical manager for Tallahassee Air Methods, a life flight helicopter service covering Tallahassee and Jacksonville. He also worked with the American Red Cross as a volunteer phlebotomist.

In 2009, Ussery attended the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine branch campus in Atlanta on a U.S. Army scholarship, graduating in May with a doctoral degree in emergency medicine.

On May 30, Ussery, together with his wife and four children, left for his first assignment at Fort Hood, Texas.

Ussery is married to Melissa Ussery, also from Valdosta. They have four children, Alycia, 11, Ashlyn, 9, Aubrey, 4, and Aden, 4.

Ussery has four siblings — Crystal Jernigan, Angie Kolman, Andy Ussery and Jennifer Blair.