Max and I were working 18 Boy one night when we received a report of a "severe laceration on st. Nicholas and 155 street. So we fly over there. We pull up and there's about 30 people screaming from a window on the third floor. We grab our trauma bag and as soon as we enter the building we hear people screaming and crying. We rush up and are ushered into an apartment. Max is in front of me and I'm behind. As I walked in a guy grabs me and pulls me over to the refrigerator and opens the door. Looking in I saw something that, even with my experience made me a little woozie: it was the hand of a child, palm down amputated at the wrist:
Max yells out: "Rocco we got to get the fuck out of here!"
" I know. I'm just putting the hand in ice". Well not in ice itself. I asked for two plastic bags. I put ice in one then the little hand in the other (my heart dropped when I picked it up. It was mangled terribly) and died it tight and placed it in the bag. then me and Max took off for Montifiore in the Bronx, a replant center. We get there and run in and begin tell the story. While I'm telling it some piece of shit doctor comes sauntering over and in a girlish voice says to my " All right, lets calm down here". I couldn't help it "Calm down? You ever look in a refrigerator and see a child's hand in there, asshole?". I mean I was steaming . I could have kicked his ass right there. Fortunately one of the nurses come running over "In here guy, hurry!". Turns out the asshole doctor was a gastroenterologist doing a consult in the ER! That's when Max pulled me physically out of the ER and the gas doctor took off to see another asshole
We find out later they were grinding meat and the kid stuck his hand in. So punish them for not keeping an eye on the kid? Looking at them as they watched them crying over their son I guess the were punished enough.
So we left the emergency room, Max sweating from head to toe and my heart broken and at the same time seething with rage. That was over 30 years ago and still if I ever ran into him in the street, I would run him into the street
Max yells out: "Rocco we got to get the fuck out of here!"
" I know. I'm just putting the hand in ice". Well not in ice itself. I asked for two plastic bags. I put ice in one then the little hand in the other (my heart dropped when I picked it up. It was mangled terribly) and died it tight and placed it in the bag. then me and Max took off for Montifiore in the Bronx, a replant center. We get there and run in and begin tell the story. While I'm telling it some piece of shit doctor comes sauntering over and in a girlish voice says to my " All right, lets calm down here". I couldn't help it "Calm down? You ever look in a refrigerator and see a child's hand in there, asshole?". I mean I was steaming . I could have kicked his ass right there. Fortunately one of the nurses come running over "In here guy, hurry!". Turns out the asshole doctor was a gastroenterologist doing a consult in the ER! That's when Max pulled me physically out of the ER and the gas doctor took off to see another asshole
We find out later they were grinding meat and the kid stuck his hand in. So punish them for not keeping an eye on the kid? Looking at them as they watched them crying over their son I guess the were punished enough.
So we left the emergency room, Max sweating from head to toe and my heart broken and at the same time seething with rage. That was over 30 years ago and still if I ever ran into him in the street, I would run him into the street
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