NORFOLK — Daysha Snipes applied to nursing school the day after her little brother was shot to death.
Jordan Harris-Snipes, 17, was four months shy of graduating high school when he died Feb. 12, 2023, the day after he was struck in a drive-by shooting while heading to a party.
His sister, 28, is determined not to let the world forget her brother’s name. Now a patient care technician for Sentara, Snipes, who goes by Day, said she often finds herself wondering who’s next.
“Every time I drive to work, panic sets in,” she told a crowd of about 200 people gathered Friday on the lawn in front of Sentara Norfolk General Hospital for a Wear Orange to End Gun Violence rally.
The event was hosted by Sentara, Eastern Virginia Medical School and Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters. This is the 10th year Wear Orange events across the country have raised awareness of gun violence’s effects on children and their families.
Wear Orange launched June 2, 2015, which would have been the 18th birthday of Hadiya Pendleton, a Chicago teen killed by a stray bullet in January 2013, just a week after she’d marched in President Barack Obama’s second inaugural parade. Orange was Hadiya’s favorite color. Others have since connected the glowing hue with hunting safety gear, indicating its wearer is not a target.
Dr. Jay Collins, medical director of Sentara Norfolk’s Level 1 trauma center, has worked in trauma medicine in the city for 25 years. The surgeon said he hears different versions of the same story from gunshot victims, their families, police and others, but none of that changes his job — to patch up his patients.
“I try to stay out of what happened on the streets,” Collins said.
His kids are now in their mid-20s, but when his daughter was a student at Old Dominion University, she’d occasionally text to ask if he had worked on victims of a recent shooting, then tell him she was nearby when it happened.
“If I were to walk in there and see her…” Collins said, shaking his head. “One thing you learn being a doctor is how special life is.”
Rallying to end gun violence is part of various prevention efforts in which Collins and other Sentara, EVMS and CHKD professionals participate — from community outreach to giving away free gun locks.
“We don’t want to make this into a political thing,” Collins said. “That isn’t what this is about.”
The primary goal for Kamron Blue, 33, coordinator of CHKD’s Safer Futures program, is to connect families with resources and address any barriers preventing them from using those resources.
Barriers can be anything from the need for transportation to addressing feelings of trauma that might prevent families from returning to the place their children almost died — even for important follow-up care, he said. Blue was a medical social worker before the Safer Futures program launched in 2021.
Responding to the bedside of a child who has been shot is a heavy reality, Blue said, but his job also gives him a lot of hope. He often meets people on the worst day of their lives, but he gets to be there the day they’re told they don’t have to come back to the hospital again, too.
“I leave here every day knowing I did the best I could by my families and my patients,” he said. “It makes a difference, one family at a time.”
Katrina Dix, 757-222-5155, katrina.dix@virginiamedia.com.
