As Details Emerge On Difficulty Getting Help To Victims, Colorado Funerals Begin

By Mark Memmott

Published July 25, 2012 at 11:53 AM CDT

An ambulance and police cars outside the Century 16 movie theater complex in Aurora, Colo, during the early hours of July 20, 2012. A gunman attacked an audience there — killing 12 people and wounding 58.

There's an account in today's Denver Post of the huge problems first responders faced early Friday when they got to the scene of the shooting rampage at an Aurora, Colo., movie theater where 12 people were killed and 58 others wounded.

According to the Post:

"Aurora fire officials say they did the best they could. They had a truck on scene within five minutes of the shooting, and emergency medical workers treated every victim they came across outside in a parking lot. But, they said, the scope of the incident, unprecedented in Aurora, overwhelmed resources, and they were unable to immediately get closer to the theater because the lot was packed with cars from patrons and police. ...

"What resulted was a medical response that worked from the outside in — allowing the less seriously injured to get to help first while critically injured patients who couldn't be moved waited as minutes ticked by to be assessed, treated and transported."

The Post's report reinforces something Eyder wrote about on Friday: the police dispatch recordings in which officers can be heard asking for ambulances, more police cruisers and any other vehicle that could be used to get victims to hospitals.

Listen To The Aurora Police Dispatch

In Aurora, the first funeral for a victim is set for today. Gordon Cowden, 51, was the oldest person to be killed. He had taken his taken his two teenage children to the premiere of The Dark Knight Rises. They were not harmed.

KWTX-TV in Waco, Texas, writes that Cowden was the son of former Texas state House Rep. George Cowden.

Gordon Cowden was "a quick witted world traveler with a keen sense of humor, he will be remembered for his devotion to his children and for always trying his best to do the right thing, no matter the obstacle," his family said in a statement.

In other news about the massacre, Fox is reporting that "James Holmes, the accused gunman ... mailed a notebook 'full of details about how he was going to kill people' to a University of Colorado psychiatrist before the attack, but the parcel sat unopened in a mailroom for as long as a week before its discovery Monday," according to a "law enforcement source."