11 year old murdered in Long Beach CA....Doctor's Perspective

[DavidI]

This was sent to me by a friend. It is heartbreaking.....

Mauricio Heilbron Jr.: A heart that can't be mended
Article Launched: 03/17/2008 07:43:57 PM PDT

Mar 18:
'Older than his age'E.R. doctor emotionally affected by child's deathLong Beach police seek 11-year-old boy's killersMar 17:
Boy, 11, shot to death An 11-year-old boy was killed and a 20-year-old man was wounded in an apparent gang-related shooting in Long Beach Sunday night. The shooting occurred in the 2000 block of East 15th Street about 10 p.m. The victims were standing in front of a residence when they were approached by two suspects, police said. The 11-year-old and the 20-year-old did not appear to be related. Jose Luis Garcia Bailey, 11, was struck in the upper torso in the ensuing gunfire and declared dead at a hospital. The man was struck in the lower torso and is expected to live.

- News report posted on presstelegram.com


By Dr. Mauricio Heilbron Jr.


I just finished sewing up a dead boy.

I pronounced him dead at 10:34 p.m. Sunday. It's now 11:27 p.m. I know I won't be able to get to sleep for a long time. I feel like I shouldn't.

I'm a trauma surgeon at St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach. I was sulking in my call room on Palm Sunday because I missed yet another important moment in my 5-year-old son's life. A tarantula crawled all over him at his best friend's birthday party, and my wife had e-mailed me a glorious photo of this big, hairy arachnid on my son's face. The phone rings, and I am summoned to the ER for a "gunshot wound to the chest." That's bad, but around these parts, sadly not a surprise. Then the ER secretary adds, "... in a 12-year-old." That changes things a bit. As I hurry down to the Emergency Department, I play out several horrific scenarios in my head - a mental exercise in preparation for what certainly was to be a difficult situation.

I arrive to a room filled to capacity with doctors, nurses, techs, volunteers, firemen, policemen and paramedics. The strictly medical people are swarming around an impossibly small figure, in a flurry of needle sticks in search of a vein, monitor-pad placement in search of a vital sign, stethoscopes vainly searching for a breath sound or a heartbeat. The non-medical personnel had formed a concerned and curious peanut gallery. One ER doctor blurts out the important points, "GSW to the chest, pulses in the field but ... ," while another ER doctor is prepping this small chest for an ER thoracotomy. In English, an "ER thoracotomy" is where you flay open a chest in a soon-to-be-dead patient, in the hopes of finding a hole you can quickly but temporarily fix. Once that is done, it gives you a chance to give the patient necessary things like blood and IV fluids (where they now will not simply flow out of those repaired holes), and get him to the OR so you can fix him properly. It is the trauma surgery equivalent of a Hail Mary football pass. This is not a "difficult situation"; this is a nightmare.

The ER doctor hands me the knife, as if to say, "Here. It's yours." I think the kid is dead, or if not dead, then he certainly is "unsalvageable," which is a horrible word to use for a human being. I don't think he's fixable. However, if he is to have any hope of survival, the only way to save him is to crack him open and try to plug up the holes. Cracking open an 11-year-old boy (he was two months shy of his 12th birthday) is going to tear my own heart in half, I think to myself, but this is part of what I do, so I slip the gloves on and take the knife.

There is precious little skin to cut through, and I'm in the chest in a few seconds. His chest cavity is filled with blood, which spills out of his chest like a macabre waterfall to the floor. There's a shredded tear in his lung, and a big, ragged hole in his heart. All the IV fluids that my associates are pouring into the patient are flowing out this hole and on to my shoes. I put my finger in this hole - such a big hole in such a small heart - but blood and fluids still flow unfettered. My other hand finds another, larger hole on the other side of his heart. My fingers touch. His heart is empty. Mine breaks.


The boy's family is brought in while I am bathed in his blood, as "studies have shown" that this is better for everyone involved, to be present as the end nears. I scramble for a way to just stop the bleeding. I just want it to stop. It's spilling over my hands on to the gurney. His mother is begging me to do what I can. I know I can't do anything. She tells me to take her heart, and give it to him. I know that's not possible, and she knows that's not possible, but she could not be more serious. The first ER doc is sitting alongside the mom, gently telling her that we've done everything we can do. His mother looks at me. My hands are still in the boy's chest, trying to do something, anything. In her eyes, I see a soul that I am about to crush with a little nod of my head. I do so.

As the howl of unimaginable grief shakes the entire ER, I am filled with anger. Why do we still sell guns in this country? What is this child doing on the streets after 10 o'clock at night? Why are we killing our innocent young soldiers overseas, and ignoring the merciless gangbangers - terrorists in their own right - that are invading ourstreets here at home? I try to put these thoughts away, because now, in front of his family, I have to sew him up. I have to close this huge gash in his left side, that I made. I place the first stitch, and as I'm tying the knot, I look at the boy's face. He's small for 11, not that much bigger than my son Ben. All the adrenaline is gone. My shoulders sag. I feel myself start to cry, and I know that I can't stop it. I have no way of hiding because literally everybody is looking at me, including his mother, and my hands are busy, so I can't wipe the tears away. I make eye contact with the mom, and whisper "I'm sorry." I finish closing his chest up, and shuffle off to the sink to wash this child's blood off my arms.


In the doctor's area, I start filling out the pointless paperwork. Several nurses and doctors come over to offer encouraging words, or a consoling hand on the shoulder. I want to quit. I don't want to do this anymore. I want to quit because that means I can go home. When I go home, I can quietly open the door to my son's room, and sit on the floor right next to his bed. I'll watch him sleep, that blissful sleep only found in young children. I'll watch him for hours, and tell myself how lucky I am to have him in my life. I want my son to put my heart back together.

But I can't go home, as I'm on call until 8 a.m. I can't quit. Tomorrow I have patients, surgeries, rounds - the usual stuff. Hopefully, I'll be home for dinner. When I come through the door, I'll hear his cheerful yell of "Daddy!" and he'll jump into my arms. He will in all likelihood never know how much that moment means to me, but it is precisely that resuscitative energy that will restore me. To keep coming back to this sort of work.

I will sneak into his room after he falls asleep. I'll give him an extra kiss good night. And then, just maybe, I'll close my eyes.

Dr. Mauricio Heilbron Jr. is chief of surgery at Little Company of Mary Hospital in San Pedro and a trauma surgeon at St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach

[Oh Haha]

Jesus,
What is wrong with people?


Obviously, many gangbangers are hardened criminals by this young boy's age but to read this doctor's words are heartbreaking.

David, thanks again for giving us a different perspective on events that some of us only read about. Be careful out there.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Gangs, drugs, a subculture that does not value education and a need for kids to prove how "macho" they are at too young an age. It all adds up to this - way too often.

This is one reason I cannot fathom ever having kids - especially living here in Southern CA - most especially in the LBC. It'd give me way, way too much to worry about. I don't honestly know how parents say good-bye to their children going off to the dumps we call "schools" around here anymore, knowing full well they're going to come face-to-face with gangs, drugs, violence (and I don't just mean "fights after school here, I mean honest-to-goodness "people die" violence), etc. at way, way too young an age.

Medical school can train you for anything except how to deal with the human side of things I guess.

[Aurel]

Gang bangers are terrorists and should be treated as such. What is DHS doing about them???

Aurel

[livi]

There are just no words that cover it. Other than perhaps that Darwin was right. We stem from the rest of the animal kingdom. Capable of worse atrocities than any other creature on this planet.

[Chocaholic]

That's just hard to read. Hopefully there are 10 stories of fragile lives that he's saved for every one that he doesn't. It seems that's the only thing that could keep me in that line of work.

[widgeon13]

There is nothing more traumatic than treating a child not matter what the condition but to be charged w/ trying to save a life and see such a feudal situation has to leave emotional scars that rarely heal. In the locale where that doctor practices I'm not sure how one survives that for much time. (Suppose that is like the Bronx in some respects) I guess you just try to win more than you lose. Regardless, it is a no win situation.

I hope he got some emotional release in writing the article. Makes most of our problems seems insignificant.

[Flatbutt1]

This is just so heart breaking. And then there are the children that aare purposefully targeted by adults. Like poor little Mary Brown. Her step father was just convicted of man slaughter in her death. Sadly, children are being murdered all over the world. Mine are grown and gone and still I fear for their safety.

[livi]

I have, like most pediatricians, lost children. Severely sick newborn babies, SIDS, septic chock, meningitis, heart disease etc. It is always a reason for seriously contemplating to resign the next morning. It feels impossible to stay another day on this job. This however, seems to me, on a certain level, much worse. Dying from another "human beings" malicious doing.

[Noah930]

I got to do something pretty similar during residency. Some kid had called his mom to pick him up from the movie theater. During the time it took her to drive over, some other kid mistook him for someone else, and stabbed him in the chest. Dispute over a girl, I heard. I got to crack his chest (both sides, like a clamshell) in the ER, but it's pretty futile when there's a whopping hole in the heart and all the blood's gone. I didn't have kids back then, but now that I do, I don't know how I'd feel were I to go through the same event, now.

[Mule]

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

Gangs, drugs, a subculture that does not value education and a need for kids to prove how "macho" they are at too young an age. It all adds up to this - way too often.

Gangs yes, drugs no. When is the last time you heard about 2 liquor store owners shooting it out? American Drug War claims another victim!

[aigel]

Why was this kid out at 10 pm on Sunday night without a parent / guardian? Didn't he have to go to school on Monday? Once they have your kid on the operating table, it is too late to become a responsible parent. I feel very sorry for the kid.

George

[KFC911]

Damn

[bivenator]

Sad, sad story. Kid was probably assisting in the drug sales, performing as a lookout. Adults often recruit the juveniles to hold drugs or be the lookout because the penalty for a minor is not as severe.
War on drugs, society embrassing ignorance, and parents not parenting. Something needs to change or the handbasket that we are going to hell in will fill up fast.

[Jims5543]

In West Palm Beach, more Riviera Beach there is now a curfew on weeknights and weekends for 17 years old and under.

I guess if parents are not going to be parents the police can do it for them?

In Fort Pierce Florida they have the same curfew and we had a little racial incident when a officer went to detain a 15 year old out at 1 in the morning on a weekday and she bit him, he punched her as she bit down and it made the media.

Sad that a little boy died I would lie if I said hit did not mist me up reading that. But when you sit back and calm your emotions and begin asking questions it makes you wonder why he was on the street at 10:00 on Sunday night. That is my 14 y/o sons bedtime on weeknights.

[sammyg2]

Gang bangers are criminals. We know who the people who are who shoot each other for sport, even if the liberal media won't say because it might offend.

Go ahead, flame away. I work in Wilmington (right next to Long Beach) where they had two gang related shootings on the same spot on the same night last week. The second was a gang banger shooting at the cops who were investigating the first shooting.
We have "unofficial" company guiidlines for employees who have to leave the plant late at night, which route to take, how to drive, which routes to avoid, etc.

There are basically two groups of people who are doing this. One group has 1 out of every 9 who are in their twenties in jail or prison already, but that's just a case of the man trying to keep them down. It doesn't have anything to do with them killing people.

As far as the other group, their parents do jobs that the rest of us won't do.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Yes and yes. Even if politically incorrect, I find this to be 100% correct.

Not too many crackers/gringos in the posses. A few, but very, very, VERY much in the minority.

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by Jim Cesiro

In West Palm Beach, more Riviera Beach there is now a curfew on weeknights and weekends for 17 years old and under.

That same curfew exists in Long Beach. Anyone under 18 has to be off the streets between 10 pm and 6 am but it isn't enforced, the parents don't care and there aren't enough jail cells.

[Jeff Higgins]

Pretty tough story to read. Maybe I'm just a bit calloused, but an 11 year old hanging out at that hour of the night with an unrelated 20 year old is already a part of the problem. In a few short years he may even have become the trigger man on some one else.

It's a tough world they have created for themselves. I find it harder and harder to have much sympathy for them. It's their world' thet created it, they can fix it. How bad does it have to get for them before they have had enough? No one will fix their problems for them, especially in the face of the monumental resistance they offer. It has to come from within their own ranks. Until that day arrives, there will continue to be a steady stream of their kids dying for nothing.

So I noticed there was no mention of the kid's father. Maybe just left out of the article, but I doubt it. More likely, he has left himself out of the kid's life. Maybe even adding to the environment in his neighborhood that took his son's life. Almost certainly doing nothing to improve it, anyway. Until men like him start leading their neighborhoods out of the quagmire they have created, it will never improve.

Why do we still sell guns in this country? So good, honest, law abiding citizens can shoot the lawless bastards that would bring this ***** into our neighborhoods. We have managed to keep ours safe, clean, and honest (for the most part, in comparison). It's not a matter of priviledge, money, race, or any of that nonsense. It's attitude. It was what we are willing to view as acceptable behavior in our neighborhoods. It's the men sticking with their families and responsibilities and leading by example. Oh, theirs lead by example as well; it's just that the example is a bit different. And they shoot each other for prestige and profit. We shoot them to defend ourselves when their nonsense spills out of their own little cesspools. That's why we continue to sell guns in this country.

[JavaBrewer]

From what I read in the story the blame lies totally on the parents. Drugs, guns, gangs, are only contributors to the final outcome.