Elevator Accident Part 1

It is important to note that this material was originally written in the fall of 1984.

In 1984, Beacon Paper Company hired a young man named Gregory Kennedy as a management trainee. For reasons no one bothered to explain properly, it fell to me to organize and supervise his training program. I suppose the simple answer was no one else wanted to be bothered and they knew I’d take the assignment seriously. Suddenly, my responsibilities in running Spec Sales and Promotions had to include seeing that Greg learned all aspects of the paper business.

It was more than a little unusual for Beacon to hire someone fresh out of college with no graphic arts training or sales experience. So I nosed around and found out that Greg’s father was a close personal friend of the executive vice-president of the conglomerate that owned Beacon Paper. When Greg graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in finance and economics but no interest in working in that field, his father, a very successful paper broker with major contacts throughout the country, dropped a few subtle hints and viola, his son was invited to join our firm. Another example of the good old boy network doing what comes naturally.

Initially, I let on that I was less than pleased with the assignment, even though it was a testament to my having learned at least a significant part of the paper business in a little over two years. Training Greg would require me to take time away from my accounts, something I discussed in detail with Tom F., my boss and Beacon’s President. But in truth I didn’t mind, partly because it fed my ego to be teaching again and partly because I had grown disenchanted with the lack of intellectual challenge in selling paper and was looking for a little diversion. The fact that Tom F. had chosen me for the job was a nice feather in my cap. It also didn’t hurt that Greg and I hit it off immediately. He was bright, enthusiastic, eager to learn, and had a sense of humor in sync with my own.

The first thing I did was to establish a training schedule for Greg’s first six months. Although my assigned job was to expose him to every facet of the business, my secret goal was to ensure that he fell in love with paper. Okay, that may sound ridiculous but it wasn’t. Yes, I had become increasingly bored with my job, which was to persuade large end-users and advertising and graphic design firms to specify our paper. But I had come to love paper and the many ways it could be used to tell a story or advance a point of view. Paper is such a fascinating medium. For all practical purposes it appears two-dimensional. But in reality it has four dimensions: length, height, depth, and an almost indefinable dimension that combines appearance, feel, texture, and substance that make paper so incredibly sensual.

The training program I developed, which was properly blessed by the powers that be, required us to meet at least three mornings each week, from 7:00 to 9:00, in formal classroom type lectures that were to cover the intricacies of paper. In addition, Greg was assigned to work periods varying from one week to several months in each of our different departments. After the first few hesitant days, I threw myself into the task with real excitement. Greg was so anxious to learn he stimulated the teacher reflex in me to the extent I began neglecting my sales responsibilities, which didn’t bother me much initially but would eventually have adversely impacted my commissions had it continued.

Greg was an eager and willing student, impressing even Beacon’s jaded salesmen with his ability to grasp concepts quickly and also with his sharp wit and cool demeanor. At twenty-two, he was full of a youthful self-confidence that was genuine but presented not the slightest hint of arrogance or inflated self-importance.

Some description is required. Greg was tall, a shade over 6 feet 2 inches, had black curly hair, and weighed around 170. His hair and saturnine features made him look more Italian than the Irish of both his parents. He wore his attractive good looks casually, without that insufferable arrogance exuded too often by tall, “beautiful” people born to money. It was a good sign that all the young women in the office liked him. On the way to the john one day I overheard bits and pieces of a conversation between two of the female workers in our mill department about his cute buns. In short, Greg was a very nice, likeable young man with exceptional ability and maturity for his age.

Greg progressed quickly in the next several weeks, working diligently in our morning sessions and in the various departments to which he was assigned. As we spent more and more time together, especially over lunch, we began discussing topics other than printing. It quickly became obvious that he was very proud of his family. He spoke frequently of his mother, who had, about two years previously, re-entered graduate school, studying for a doctorate in psychology. But he seldom said much about his father. Initially, biased no doubt by the miserable relationship I had had with my father, I assumed the two weren’t close. It wasn’t long before I discovered the reverse was the case. Despite talking little about his father, it soon became obvious that he cared for him deeply and wanted his dad to think highly of him. As a paper broker with a national clientele, Greg’s dad was very well known and extremely successful in a cutthroat business. Without ever voicing his concerns, it became evident that Greg wanted to prove that he could carve his own niche in life and become every bit as successful as dear old dad. That’s why he had refused an offer from his father’s firm and also why he left Detroit for a job in St. Louis. He wanted to succeed on his own terms.

Not having had a good relationship with my father, I caught myself almost envying Greg for his. Hearing him talk about his family and their vacations and all the good times they enjoyed made me sad for the absence of those high-quality experiences in my own life.

When we ate lunch together we never talked about the paper business but focused on far more vital topics, like religion, politics, and philosophy. To my astonishment, I discovered that Greg had never heard of many of the world’s great philosophers, including Immanuel Kant, Ludwig Wittgenstein or Martin Heidegger and only barely recognized the names Sorën Kierkegaard or Sartre and knew precious little about their contributions to the world of intellection. With some prodding he admitted to have taken only an introductory philosophy course, one that was strictly concerned with such contemporary topics as abortion, substance abuse, and sexual “ethics,” as he put it.

As a former university professor I was disappointed with his lack of preparation for the most important task life puts before everyone: thinking. Ever the teacher, despite having been removed for some seven years from my last full-time university position, I determined to give Greg at least a small inkling of the sweep of philosophy and show him how absolutely necessary it had been to the development of Western history and civilization. Since lunch breaks are not particularly conducive to discussing how Socrates-Plato-Aristotle and countless others have changed their worlds and ours, I determined to excite his innate sense of curiosity by lending him books from my home library by William Barrett, Jules Henry, Ashley Montagu, and Philip Slater, among others. Once he discovered the world of ideas I knew he would pursue it on his own.

About two months into Greg’s training we became all extremely busy preparing Beacon Paper’s display booth and promotional materials for the largest graphic arts exhibition in the St. Louis area. As Manager of Sales Promotions I was responsible for making sure every little thing was perfect, from the booth’s set-up, paper display’s, name tags, printed handouts, advertising blurbs, to the typical coffee mug and business card holder give-aways. All the hundred small but supposedly essential details. For three weeks before the big event Greg and I worked hand in hand to make sure every piece we were going to use was perfect, which was critical since representatives of the holding company from Detroit that owned Beacon would be in town to see what we were doing to increase our sales. The naked sword was hanging over our heads. It was perform or else. And none of us wanted to find out exactly what the or-else meant.

For some unexplained reason that Friday before the big event was even more crazy than usual. All day long we were kept running around like fools. By 4:30 I had had it. Everything had been counted, packed, unpacked, re-counted, and re-packed. We were both exhausted. I told Greg to sit down, relax, and start dreaming about the hot date he had been talking about for the last two days and forget the paper bullshit until the big show. I breathed a sigh of relief and headed for home, a warm shower, a cold beer or two and early bed, leaving Greg to finish up the last few remaining things.

About 8:30 that night the phone rang. It was Bob J., Beacon’s VP of Operations. His voice was grim as he told me that Greg had been in an accident at work. Around 4:55 one of our larger clients called with an urgent request for several boxes of printed materials we had been holding for them. Bob told Greg to bring them from the warehouse. The electric freight elevator was in use so Greg, in a big hurry to get the brochures and be on his way home to clean up for his hot date, took the old hydraulic elevator that only the warehousemen were supposed to use. Somewhere between the second and the sixth floors Greg had become trapped between the wall and the elevator and had been badly bruised.

“Bruised?” I asked, a cold dark pit opening in my stomach. “What the hell does that mean? Just how bad it is?”

“It’s not really that bad,” Jorgee insisted. “The paramedics took him to St. Louis University Hospital. They thought he might be bleeding internally. But it’s not all that serious. He had a collapsed lung but the Emergency Room doctors re-inflated it. So that’s no big problem. The surgeon told me he might have to open Greg’s abdominal cavity to see what’s causing the loss of blood.” His voice, unanimated in the best of circumstances was flat and devoid of emotion but was not without hope.

“Jesus Christ!” I exclaimed. “Collapsed lung, internal bleeding. What do you mean, it’s not too bad? How the hell did it happen?” Despite Jorgee’s reassurances, I felt sick with apprehension.

“Hell, I don’t know. He was alone in the elevator.”

“Who found him?”

“One of the shipping clerks saw the hydraulic elevator come down with no one on it. So he called up the shaft to see who was using it. He heard Greg moaning for help. He ran upstairs and found him lying on the second floor in front of the elevator door.”

“Was he bleeding badly?”

“No. That’s the crazy part. He wasn’t bleeding externally at all. His shirt was torn in the back and the skin on his back was scraped but there was almost no blood. When I got there Greg tried to get up and walk but he couldn’t. That’s when I called 911. The police arrived first but took one look and said it was only a minor accident, not enough to justify a report. The EMS people took his vital signs and got him into the ambulance right away because he was going into shock. His pulse was weak and rapid and his blood pressure was really low, like 70 over 40.”

“That’s not a good sign. Where’d you say they took him?”

“To the University Trauma Center. By the time I got here at 6:00 his blood pressure was back to normal and he was alert. He even asked the nurse to call his girlfriend and cancel their date.”

“That’s Greg all right.” I chuckled with an ease I didn’t feel. “Always organized. Did you ask him how it happened?”

“Yeah, but all he said was that he was sorry he had messed up and would tell me about it later. When he felt better.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah. He told Bill, the warehouseman who found him that he was riding between the elevator and the wall and got stuck.”

“What? Stuck where? How could he get stuck between the elevator and the wall? How’s that possible? There’s no room. Besides, which wall did he mean? The front or the back?” Nothing Bob J. said was making sense.

“Shit, I don’t know. I really don’t.” He sounded as puzzled as I was. “I called his parents and they’re flying from Detroit first thing tomorrow morning. The surgeon told them it didn’t look too serious but they’re coming anyway.”

“Did you call Tom yet?” Beacon’s President and his wife were vacationing in Florida and weren’t scheduled to return for several days.

“No. He can’t do anything but get upset and worry all night. If it’s necessary I’ll get in touch with him in the morning.”

I sighed, feeling helpless, worried, and shocked that such a serious accident could happen to one of our friends and co-workers. “You need me to come down there?”

“No. Carol and Kim from the accounting department are here. They’ll stay and see if the surgeon decides to open him up. I can only be here for an hour. My oldest is running a high fever so I have to get a prescription on my way home. My wife Mary Lou can’t pick it up because her car is on the fritz so I have to head out before the drug store closes.”

“Okay. Tell Carol or Kim to call me if anything happens, will you? I mean anything.”

“Sure. But take it easy. Don’t tie yourself in knots. Greg is in good hands. He’s awake and talking to anyone who’ll listen. He’ll be fine. It was just a nasty scrape. He’ll probably be back at work by Monday at the latest.”

I felt reassured by the confidence in his voice. After all, he was on the scene talking to the doctor and I wasn’t. After I hung up San wanted to know all the details. But there wasn’t much to tell her. Even though I saw that old freight elevator every day I was completely incapable of visualizing how Greg could have been riding between it and the wall. No matter how I thought about it I could not imagine how the accident had occurred. It was a puzzle.

By the time we climbed into bed, both San and I assumed everything was under control. Since we hadn’t heard from anyone at the Hospital we took refuge in the comforting attitude that no news is good news. But it took me over an hour to fall asleep. And when I did it wasn’t a sound sleep. I tossed and turned on the edge of consciousness until the ringing of the downstairs phone jolted me wide-awake. We ordinarily disconnected our bedroom phone to ward off prank, post-midnight calls to one of our teenaged children. In the dark and more than half-asleep San couldn’t find the switch on the side of the phone that would turn it on. As she fumbled the kitchen phone continued ringing. The red numbers of the clock on the night stand winked 2:12.

“Quick,” I said, frantic with worry. “It might be the Hospital.”

She finally found the button and handed me the phone.

“Hello.”

“Bob?”

“Yeah, Kim. What’s going on?” I replied, instantly recognizing the pain in her voice.

“It’s really bad news.” She choked back a sob, trying to steady her voice. “They just took Greg from the operating room to Intensive Care. The surgeon came out and explained everything to us because Carol and I are the only ones here. He told us it doesn’t look like Greg’s going to make it.”

“What! Oh my God!” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Not going to make it? A couple hours ago Jorgee told me he was doing fine. What the hell happened?”

“They knew he was bleeding internally so at 10:00 the surgeon made a small incision in the stomach wall to see if they could spot the trouble. Right before they took Greg in the doctor told us it was a routine procedure. But once he was open they found all his internal organs were crushed.”

“Jesus Christ. Crushed? What the hell?” Waves of nausea crashed over me.

Kim continued in a rush before I could say anything more. I realized she had to keep talking or she would break down. “They removed his spleen, part of his stomach, most of his colon, part of his liver, half of his pancreas. One of the arteries leading to the right kidney was torn apart. That’s where most of the bleeding was coming from. They repaired the artery but the doctor is afraid the kidney is shot. They can’t be sure at this time but wanted to give him every chance.”

“Oh my God. Oh my God.” I was unable to say anything else. My entire body had turned cold as a marble slab but I couldn’t even shiver.

“His blood pressure is fluctuating very erratically and they’re worried about some problem called ARDS in the collapsed lungs. It’s got something to do with a mucous membrane forming in his lungs but I’m not sure what that means. I just know it’s really serious. The doctor also said that because of the extensive bleeding he’s worried about Greg using up all the clotting factor in his blood. But I don’t know what they’re doing about it. My head is numb and I can’t seem to think straight. I, I just feel so overwhelmed.”

“Hang in there, Kim. You’re doing great. Give me a few minutes to throw my clothes on and I’ll be there in . . .”

“No. You don’t need to come down. Greg’s still unconscious. Just sitting around here wouldn’t do you or him any good. Try to get some sleep and come in the morning.”

“Okay. Do you think he’ll make it through the night?”

“Oh God, I don’t know.” Her sigh was a cross between a cry and a moan. “Have to tell you his surgeon is very pessimistic. But he said Greg has a slim chance if his blood pressure stabilizes. Right now it just doesn’t look good.”

“Did you call Jorgee?”

“Yeah, right before I called you.”

“What about Greg’s parents?”

“Dr. Karpinski phoned them before he talked to me and Carol.”

“Who’s Karpinski?”

“The surgeon who operated on Greg.”

“Oh.” Feeling empty, useless and deep down depressed I had little more to say but found myself searching for some way to reassure the two of us. “You’ve got to keep your hopes up. He’ll pull through. Greg’s a strong kid.”

“Maybe,” she sniffed, not buying my bullshit optimism.

“How are you feeling?” I asked, belatedly remembering she was one of the gals at work I had overheard commenting about Greg’s attractive body.

“Not good. All Carol and I can do is cry and hold on to each other.”

“Are you guys going home now?”

“No. We’ll stay. Greg’s parents are supposed to arrive at the airport a little after 8:00. Bob J. and his wife are picking them up. They’ll get here around 9:00. As soon as they arrive we’ll leave. Carol and I don’t want them to think we left him all alone through the night.”

“Listen,” I said, feeling weariness that couldn’t be explained by the lateness of the hour. “I want you to call me if his condition changes. No matter what. I want to be there if . . .”

She interrupted immediately, like she didn’t want me to finish the thought. “Okay. One of us will call you right away.”

The rest of the night was a tossing, turning, pacing nightmare. Hope, despair, fear, uncertainty, and resurgent hope fought across the battlefield of my mind. I struggled to understand what had happened and failed. I dozed, woke, fell back into a fitful half-sleep only to jump up in unknowing fright at 5:00 AM when I gave up in frustration and went downstairs. The book I attempted to read lay open on my lap. Concentrating on the words proved too much and effort. The pages refused to stay in focus. So, I stared at the brick fireplace but found no comfort there.

Of all things, a month previously I had volunteered to give a seminar on how to conduct community research to the Junior League. A friend had asked me so many times I had felt guilty for refusing her so finally had agreed. The lecture was scheduled for 8:30. I was grateful for something to think about other that Greg lying helplessly in the Hospital and tried to organize my ideas on how to discover the nature of urban social problems so some of them might to acceptable to upper middle class do-gooders. That effort only worker for a short time.

One of the Junior Leaguers picked me up at 8:00 and drove me to their stylish headquarters in Frontenac, an upscale suburb. For an hour and thirty minutes I was able to banish all the mind-numbing thoughts about Greg’s injury and worse and concentrate on helping over-anxious upper crust American women, smartly dressed in their elegant woolen casuals and asking such polite, inane questions, sort out how they could make a difference in resolving the enormous racial and economic problems of St. Louis. Not when their bank president husbands were making millions on red-lining slum properties owned by poor blacks. Can you spell fat fucking chance?

San picked me up after I made good my escape and we rushed into the City, not talking, not thinking. This precarious medical emergency was so like what had happened to Karin we could barely articulate our fears. Our grey spirits were matched perfectly by the leaden skies and intermittent rain. We had heard no more news from the Hospital but our unfettered imaginations conjured up the worst.

The University Medical Center towers thrust their way past half-empty parking lots, abandoned single- and multi-family residences soon to be converted to medical offices and more parking lots. It was a triumph of institutional power over the housing needs of poor blacks who had been banished to even drearier neighborhoods and ever more dilapidated structures. Hey, the land was valuable to the University and who was there to speak for the needs of the inarticulate poor? No one.

The Medical Center was a huge facility, almost but not quite reassuring in high-tech steel, smoked glass, concrete and a tasteful veneer of used brick that had most likely been recovered from neighborhood houses knocked down to make room for its brand of progress. See what happens when those in power get to define the situation? Those who triumph write history, not the vanquished.

Inside the Medical Center, the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit radiated a familiar aura of human frailty that smacked San and I in the face with the tangible nexus of life and death. This place, so strange yet too familiar, was where the struggle for life was joined and was often terminated short of the goal. Entering the Unit for the first time was a tense, stomach-churning experience. Neither San nor I could ever forget those dreadful hours and days we spent in the St. Joseph Hospital with Karin. This experience was so frighteningly similar it shook us both to our cores.

We boldly strode past the nurse on guard duty sitting at a desk under a large red sign prominently declaring: RELATIVES ONLY. Our logic was that if we acted as if we belonged no one was likely to challenge our right to be there. So we charged ahead with outward confidence, hoping to spot someone we knew before our charade was unmasked and we were routed for the intruders we were. Just then San saw Bob J, and his wife sitting in a small waiting room with two people I assumed to be Greg’s parents. Oh, sweet Jesus, I groaned inwardly. Jorgee looked as pale as death. San must have noticed it at the same time, squeezing my hand in a sudden vice-grip. We walked in, prepared for the worst. I kissed Mary Lou, put my arms around Jorgee’s large shoulders and gave him a hug. His lips were pursed tightly, as if keeping the bad news from becoming real by being silent.

He turned and introduced us to Greg’s parents, Penny and Tom Kennedy. They were as white as chalk and looked as brittle from the tension. As the women sat awkwardly, together, the three men walked to the coffee machine in the hall, feigning a desire to drink the hot but tasteless fluid.

“How is he?” I forced myself to look Tom in the eye, steeling myself for his response.

“Hanging in there.” Kennedy’s words choked in his throat as if they were the cause of all the emotion. “We’re praying a lot.” Tears welled up in eyes already red from unaccustomed weeping.

Without conscious volition my arms circled the burley shoulders of this stranger I felt I knew, hugging him in a clumsy attempt to give comfort. My heart bled for his suffering.

“The surgeon didn’t give us much hope,” he continued, wiping his eyes with a ravaged tissue. “He told us a little while ago that if Greg can stabilize for the next day or so he’s got a chance. A very slim chance. But if he stabilizes he might be able to pull through.”

Good God in Heaven. Might pull through? What an insubstantial thread to cling to amidst total strangers in an unfamiliar environment. How terrible for them. Their oldest child struck down and they didn’t even have the comfort of their own doctor to provide some small measure of reassurance. They were helpless to affect the outcome in ways we had never been with Karin. At least we had a network of friends to support us.

Now we all were spectators together watching, waiting. Only Greg and Dr. Karpinski, the anonymous surgeon were the actors.

“Does he know you’re here?” As soon as the words were out I wanted to bite my tongue for asking such an insensitive question.

“Yeah. He smiled at us when Penny and I went in to see him. He squeezed Penny’s hand and said, ‘Hi, Mom.’ I could read his lips through the oxygen mask.” He covered his eyes with his hand and breathed several short shallow gasps, sucking in the air sharply as if he were in pain. He sagged against the wall. Bob J. and I quickly put our arms around him for support, afraid he was about to collapse. But he was stronger than we thought.

It is difficult to remember distinctly the events of that bleak day. We walked the halls a great deal, sat in the dreadfully uncomfortable chairs in the waiting room until our backs screamed for mercy, stood around helplessly murmuring the same words of hope and assurance we had earlier, and talked about the World Series, pro football, the coming national elections. Or any topic that didn’t stick in our throats. Those first hours of vigil passed like days. Every turn when you reached the end of whatever hall you were walking down brought a view of yet another clock. The damned things were everywhere. You couldn’t avoid seeing them. And being reminded that barely five minutes had elapsed since the last time you checked.

Periodically, a doctor, nurse, or priest entered our solemn little universe of whispered pain and visited with the Kennedys. We would then slip quietly away to give them what little privacy that could be afforded in the constrained circumstances. On one of those occasions, a young priest came to talk to the Kennedys. Before he had time to say more than a few words, Penny stood up and left the room, a look of pained irritation on her face. Only then did I remember Greg told me his mother was very critical of the Catholic Church and was resolutely anti-clerical while his father remained faithful to his religious roots. Inwardly, I mused on their reversal of the roles San and I played with respect to religion.

By mid-afternoon the men, dredging deep into the bottom of the conversational barrel, got down to discussing the paper business. Tom Kennedy fascinated us with a wealth of anecdotal gems about the follies of selling train cars, truck loads, and cargo containers of domestic and imported paper to the largest printers in Chicago, Detroit, and the East Coast. He had a great sense of humor and in few words was able to skewer the miserly and avaricious habits of paper buyers most of us knew, at least by reputation, and frequently disliked. The laughter was a much needed release for us all but particularly for the big, red-faced Irishman who, with his expensive tweed jacket, thinning gray hair, and hearty manner, looked the perfect advertisement for Air Lingus. Every time he gestured or smiled I saw the son mirrored in him. Those were poignant moments for me.

The small waiting room was so crowded and warm it was difficult for me to concentrate on his words so I took in the man. He impressed me as a very direct, open fellow, honest in expressing deep emotions even though surrounded by strangers who, in his mind, may by some terrible negligence be responsible for Greg’s accident. That monstrous thought was banished immediately though nonetheless it would return to haunt my days and nights.

In spite of my involvement in the painful situation, in that Greg worked directly for me and I was responsible for his actions at work, I was caught up in and intrigued by the depth of Tom’s involvement in the complex world of paper and printing. Tom and his firm represented an enormous market, millions and millions of pounds of paper purchased annually by some of the largest printers in the world. Paper that was printed for most of the national periodicals, like Time, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, etc., and for such huge end users as General Motors, K-Mart, Ford, General Electric, etc. It was obvious that he knew and loved his business with a passion I could never understand or even begin to appreciate. Yet, I was utterly fascinated by his in-depth knowledge of every major paper market and seemingly every sizeable piece of business ranging from the Mid-West to the East Coast. Just listening to him was an education.

With the passing hours our little coterie split first into one group and then another. Sometime in the mid-afternoon, Penny and I were together in the waiting room. Everyone else was pacing the halls, standing around the drinking fountain or having yet another coffee downstairs in the cafeteria. I was sitting across the room with San and took that opportunity to look at her closely. Despite the lines of tension and anxiety on her face, she was an attractive woman. I guessed her age at about forty-five or six. She was slimmer than many twenty-year-olds and much more elegant. Which is one thing having a lot of money can do for you. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying. A ragged, formerly dainty handkerchief was clutched so tightly her knuckles were bloodless white. She stared vacantly ahead with unfocused eyes completely unaware of her surroundings. It was almost as if she were in shock as well.

As we sat there all San and I could think about was that terrible time in Ann Arbor with our daughter, Karin. About after her surgery when she developed hypertension and the doctors gave us almost no hope of her survival. I remembered how terrified I had been. How I had prayed to a God I didn’t think was there for a miracle I didn’t think would happen. But Karin surprised everyone, including her medical team. She had defied what had seemed insurmountable odds. So, maybe against all the doctors’ grim prognostications Greg would pull through. He was young, healthy, very strong, and above all a fighter. In addition, we were pulling for him, however much that counted.

I walked over to Penny and sat next to her, putting my arm around her shoulders. She felt so thin and frail that I was afraid my hug would crush her like an eggshell. But, like an eggshell, she would prove to have considerable strength.

“He’ll make it, Penny,” I said with a confidence I didn’t feel. “He’s got everything working for him.”

“God, I don’t know. I’m so frightened. We don’t know any doctors here we could bring in for a second opinion. What if he’s not getting the right treatment? We wouldn’t even know.” She sobbed into the rumpled cloth. “We just don’t know what to do. It’s such an awful feeling of helplessness.”

My heart was torn for her. It was bad enough that her son lay critically injured just a few feet away but compounding the whole tragedy was the total absence of comforting relatives and friends, or even a familiar environment where they knew the reputation of the hospital and medical staff.

“One of my good friends is an OB-GYN. He has privileges at the Hospital even though most of his practice is in West County. When I get home I can call him and find out about the surgeon and the Intensive Care Unit. Would you like me to do that?” It wasn’t much but it was all I could offer except the small solace of my physical presence.

“Yes. We need to know everything about the doctor and the Hospital. If there’s anything we can do to help Greg we’ll do it. Even if that means flying in another specialist.”

Before I could say another word we heard a commotion in the hall. Penny leaned forward to see what was happening. Suddenly she cried out loud, jumped up from the chair and ran into the arms of a woman who had just arrived. It was obvious that the women were close friends or relatives. In a few minutes, after everyone had stopped crying and hugging each other, Tom and Penny introduced us to their closest friends, Duke and Barbara B. They had just flown in from Detroit to be with the Kennedys.

Several minutes later I caught Jorgee’s eye. We agreed it was time to leave so the Kennedys and their friends could talk freely, without our unintentionally prying eyes on them. As the four of us exited through the lobby, J. suggested we go downtown to check the elevator and see if we could find any evidence of what had happened last night. Mary Lou and San decided to go home in our car and Jorgee and I left in his. Neither of the women wanted to have anything to do with the elevator and I couldn’t blame them. To tell the truth, I didn’t either.