Dr Joshua Corsa’s bloodstained shoes.

A senior surgical resident who helped save the lives of victims of the Orlando massacre has posted a moving tribute and iconic image that’s sure to go down as one of the most memorable messages of hope since the tragedy.

Orlando Regional Medical Centre’s Joshua Corsa was working on the night of June 12, when Omar Mateen walked into gay nightclub Pulse with a 9mm handgun and an AR-15-style assault rifle and shot dead 49 people, and left 53 injured.

As scores of people were wheeled into the hospital with gun shot wounds, Dr Corsa was part of the medical team who were assigned to save their lives.

Patients “came to us in wave upon wave of suffering, screaming, and death,” he described.

The next day, he spotted his bloodstained shoes — which were “not even a week old” — and decided to post them to Facebook, describing how he would “forever see their [victims’] faces and the faces of those that gave everything they had in those dark hours”.

Dr Joshua Corsa. Picture: FacebookSource:Facebook

A screen grab of Dr Corsa’s original post.Source:Supplied

“On these shoes, soaked between its fibres, is the blood of 54 innocent human beings,” he wrote.

“I don’t know which were straight, which were gay, which were black, or which were Hispanic. What I do know is that they came to us in wave upon wave of suffering, screaming, and death. “And somehow, in that chaos, doctors, nurses, technicians, police, paramedics, and others, performed super human feats of compassion and care.

“This blood, which poured out of those patients and soaked through my scrubs and shoes, will stain me forever.”

Despite there being “an enormous amount of work to be done”, Dr Corsa said he would “continue to wear” the shoes.

“And when the last patient leaves our hospital, I will take them off, and I will keep them in my office. I want to see them in front of me every time I go to work.

“For on June 12, after the worst of humanity reared its evil head, I saw the best of humanity of come fighting right back. I never want to forget that night.”

The post appears to have been deleted since.

Nine people died in the hospital after the shooting, while another six are in a critical condition. “One or two of the six patients remain profoundly ill,” the hospital tweeted overnight.

“The main question is regarding long-term outcome after they leave the hospital.”

The 29 remaining patients were showing “positive progress”.

In an interview with NBC, trauma surgeon Chad Smith described how the patients began flooding in to the hospital after the deadliest mass shooting in American history.

“Patients weren’t coming by ambulances; they were coming in by the truck- and ambulance-loads,” he said.

“You don’t have another choice, those people are depending on you. You’re there and you’ve got to do it.

“This is the worst and best day of my career. You don’t have time to stop and think — you just go. And I think we all have been ‘just going’ from the beginning.

“I can only say that with everything we have all been through, I am extremely proud of everyone.”

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