AUSTIN, Texas — Austin-Travis County EMS paramedics who rushed to the scene of a mass shooting in the city’s Sixth Street entertainment district say their training and teamwork helped them move quickly to treat victims — but the emotional impact of the call is still unfolding.
More than 50 EMS medics responded to the early morning shooting on March 1 outside Buford’s bar, where a gunman opened fire from a vehicle before exiting and continuing to shoot. Three people were killed and 14 others were transported to hospitals.
| RESOURCE: Own the airway: Get the field-ready guide to safer airway decisions
Officials say the rapid response from police and embedded paramedics helped save lives.
“Austin Travis County EMS received the first calls at 1:59 in the morning,” EMS Chief Rob Luckritz said during a press briefing. “We had medical care on-site treating patients within 57 seconds as part of a program between Austin Travis County EMS and the Austin Police Department, where we have paramedics embedded with the teams during the peak of entertainment hours.”
Rapid response in the entertainment district
The shooting occurred around 2 a.m. in Austin’s busy Sixth Street entertainment district, where police, fire and EMS units are routinely staged on weekend nights because of the large crowds.
According to Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis, officers and medics were already nearby when the shooting began.
“And so you’re talking when this came out, we were about 55-56 seconds away coming from east to west Austin,” Davis said.
Austin-Travis County EMS had more than 20 resources respond to the incident, officials said.
“In total, there were 17 patients treated, three were pronounced on scene, and 14 were transported to local hospitals, three in critical condition,” Luckritz said.
Medics cleared the scene quickly despite the scale of the incident.
“We had all critical patients off the scene within 24 minutes and all patients off the scene within 47 minutes,” Luckritz said.
Body camera video of the incident from the Austin Police Department:
Embedded paramedics part of coordinated response
The rapid response was partly due to a program that pairs paramedics with police units during peak hours in the entertainment district.
Luckritz said the partnership has expanded significantly in recent years.
“EMS and the Austin Police Department have worked closely together for a number of years,” he said. “However, there’s been significant investment over the past three to four years in that partnership, including adding dedicated EMS resources to the entertainment district on the weekends as well as supplemental paramedics that are embedded with the Austin Police Department on various apparatus, including like Polaris Rangers, and things that can rapidly respond in the event of an active shooter situation.”
Those resources were already deployed when the shooting began, which helped EMS effectively manage the scene, Luckritz said.
Medics reflect on the emotional toll
For some medics, the call was unlike anything they had experienced before.
Austin-Travis County EMS Paramedic Jennifer Barnhart told KVUE that the incident has stayed with her in the days since.
“Now that I’ve had time to sit with it myself, it’s still pretty heavy. This isn’t something that’s going to go away anytime soon,” Barnhart told KVUE. “This is a big event. This is the biggest event that I’ve had to work since being on the CASTMED team or in my EMS career at all.”
Barnhart and Paramedic Diamond Horton were part of the Counter-Assault Strike Team Paramedics (CASTMED) unit assigned to the district that night and were among the first medics to reach the scene.
Both said their training prepared them for the possibility of a large-scale incident.
“So, the potential of that has always been there, hence our training, why we’ve trained so hard to be ready for that,” Barnhart said. “You can train as much as you want to, but it’s going to come down to how you fall back on your training when you have to go into a situation you’ve never run before and then build off what you’ve run in the past.”
In the aftermath of the shooting, medics say they are relying on support from colleagues and department leadership.
“I have received so much love and support from my coworkers and even from command. They’ve reached out personally called me. I’ve been offered mental health services,” Horton said.
The department has scheduled group discussions and made mental health resources available to responders.
For Horton, one of the hardest moments came after learning that one of the patients later died from their injuries.
“It hurts us. It takes a piece of our soul I guess in a way, right, when we can’t save everyone. It’s just something that we somewhat live with, right?” Horton told KVUE.
Despite the loss, Horton said bystanders also played a role in helping victims before crews arrived.
He and the department continue to encourage the public to learn CPR and bleeding control techniques.
Officials say the investigation into the shooting remains ongoing, including whether the suspect had any potential ties to terrorism.
