Volume 50
Issue 14
LOYOLA
December 5, 2018
PHOENIX
Fifty Years of Excellence: 1969 - 2019
‘That could’ve been me’
For Loyola nursing students in their clinical rotations, the mass shooting at Mercy Hospital hit close to home. CHRISTOPHER HACKER chacker@luc.edu
On Monday, Nov. 19, a man with a history of violent behavior walked into the parking lot of Mercy Hospital with a gun. He had gone to confront the woman who had broken off their engagement and gotten a restraining order against him. In the minutes that followed, four people would be dead. As the shots rang out, 20-year-old Austin Reigle, a nursing student at Loyola, was sitting in his bedroom. He got a text in a group message with other nursing students who work at Mercy, telling him to turn on the news. “I turned on the TV and my mouth was just open and my heart was racing,” Reigle said. “That could’ve been
us, that could’ve been me.” Meanwhile, Grace Gallagher, a nursing student at Loyola who, like Reigle, spends one day every week at Mercy, got a terrified call from her mom. “She called me in a panic because she forgot that I’m there Tuesdays instead of Mondays, so she was so worried,” Gallagher, 21, said. Dr. Tamara O’Neal, 38, who said in her restraining order the shooter was often threatening and slept with a gun under his pillow, was killed in the hospital’s parking lot. Inside, 25-yearold pharmacy resident Dayna Less was shot as she got out of an elevator. And a 28-year-old cop and father of three named Samuel Jimenez was killed while trying to stop the shooter, who later turned the gun on himself. As the city began to make sense
of the tragedy, many of the students who work at Mercy wrestled with the knowledge that the crisis of mass shootings in America had come to their backyard. Gallagher said it was hard to comprehend at first. “I was kind of in disbelief,” Gallagher said. “I know there are a lot of shootings nowadays, unfortunately, but until it happens somewhere where you actually know people and are a part of the community, you still feel like ‘oh, it’s not going to happen to me.’” But it did happen to her. Not only was the shooting at the students’ place of work, it happened inside the same door they walk in every day. “We park our cars at 5 a.m., we go
through that lobby every morning,” Reigle said. “I read on the news there was a woman [who was shot] in the pharmacy area … I know it. I see it every day.” Their shock soon turned to relief, however, as the students realized they themselves could’ve been victims. Reigle said the shooting happened around the same time they leave the hospital. Had the shooting been just one day later, they would’ve been walking out right as it began. “They send us down to that pharmacy sometimes, so it could’ve been any of us getting out of the elevator that got shot if it’d just happened a day later,” Gallagher said. The next day, however, it was back to work. Gallagher was there at her usual
time Tuesday morning. But the memory of what had happened the previous day hung heavy over the 292-bed hospital on Chicago’s Near South Side, 12 miles from Loyola’s campus in Rogers Park. Gallagher said it was surprisingly quiet when she first arrived. “A lot of the patients had decided to leave because they had that option, so the patient number we had was cut down significantly,” Gallagher said. “It was just an overall very somber tone.” During their “morning huddle,” a quick meeting held before the staff assumes their various roles for the day, a nurse addressed the tragedy. She said there was a Mass being offered, and all were welcome to attend. Mercy 5
‘Next Man Three bugs found in Loyola dining hall food since February Up’ After Williamson Injury
Nick Schultz
The PHOENIX
Sophomore guard Lucas Williamson went down with a hand injury Nov. 27
KYLE BROWN kbrown16@luc.edu
The Loyola men’s basketball team suffered a potentially major setback when Lucas Williamson broke his right hand during Loyola’s loss to the University of Nevada Nov. 27. The injury is expected to keep the sophomore guard sidelined until January, according to Loyola Athletics. Loyola (5-3) won its first game without Williamson 73-64 over University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) Dec. 1. Williamson was averaging 8.9 points to go along with 7.1 rebounds and 2.9 assists per game this season, highlighted by a 23-point outburst in a victory over University of Richmond Nov. 19. Williamson is also second on the team in three-point percentage, shooting 37.9 percent over seven games. With the loss of Williamson, head coach Porter Moser was forced to restructure his lineup. Moser also moved redshirt sophomore forward Aher Uguak — who had previously started every game this season — to the bench. Uguak, whom Moser spoke highly of before the season, is averaging 5.1 points and 2.6 rebounds per game on just 34.3 percent shooting. The six minutes he played against UIC were the fewest he’s played all season. Taking their places in the starting lineup were first-year guards Isaiah Bujdoso and Cooper Kaifes, who were both starting their first collegiate game. Injury
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Courtesy of Zalia Cook
Courtesy of Kate Bennett
Courtesy of Marii Herlinger
Bugs have been found in the food at Loyola’s three dining halls. Loyola’s dining halls are run by Aramark, which also handles food at prisons, hospitals and other universities around the country. Aramark had its contract cancelled with the Michigan Department of Corrections in 2015 due to issues with rodents and maggots in its kitchen areas.
MARY NORKOL mnorkol@luc.edu
Loyola sophomore Marii Herlinger went to de Nobili Dining Hall on the morning of Nov. 16 expecting to have a normal breakfast. But instead, she found what seemed to be a dead bug in her fruit mix. “I just went to de Nobili, got fruit from the blackberry strawberry medley and found this weird wormy [thing],” Herlinger said. “It was furry and had legs, and it was small but sizable still,” Herlinger, 19, said. Herlinger isn’t the only student who’s had a run-in with critters in Loyola’s dining halls, causing some students to question the quality of the food and the cleanliness of the quarters. Zalia Cook, a 19-year-old sophomore, said she found a dead spider in her food from Damen Dining Hall in February, and just recently almost ate moldy bread from de Nobili Dining Hall. Cook
said her experience has caused her to go to restaurants around campus more often. She added she prefers the made-toorder options in the dining halls. “I also try to do more of when they cook things for you … because with the other food, you don’t know how long it’s been sitting there.” She said she hasn’t reported either incident, but if something happens again she would file a report. Aramark, the company which provides the food in Loyola’s dining halls and on-campus cafes, also handles the food at prisons, hospitals and other universities around the country. Aramark has faced questions about food quality — at Loyola and other universities — in the past. Aramark spokeswoman Karen Cutler said in a statement to The Phoenix that Aramark works with the health department, which inspects the company’s operations. Aramark also conducts its own inspections, according to Cutler.
During a September 2011 inspection, Chicago’s public health department found “brown and pink mold-like substances” in an ice machine and dripping into ice, The Phoenix previously reported. But the facility, which wasn’t revealed on the health department’s website, received a “pass with conditions” status, meaning the health department found issues but they were corrected during the inspection. At the time, an Aramark spokesperson told The Phoenix the ice machine wasn’t in use, so it didn’t impact the inspection. A student at Butler University reportedly found a bug in his Aramark-run dining hall food in August, the Butler Collegian, the school’s newspaper, reported. During a January health department inspection of a Barnard College dining hall — which was run by Aramark — evidence of mice and filth flies were found, the Columbia Spectator, Columbia University’s student newspaper, reported. Bugs
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“I just went to de Nobili, got fruit from the blackberry strawberry medley and found this weird wormy [thing]. It was furry and had legs.”
MARII HERLINGER Loyola sophomore