Hometown Hero--Kevin Keith, Durham EMS

At 3am this past Saturday, I did something that I had never done before in my life. I called 9-1-1…..for me. I’ve called for others in the past, but never for me.

This would turn out to be a day of “firsts” for me, some that I prefer to forget. I desperately want to forget that I screamed at the top of my lungs several times because of the pain that I was in. I want to forget being strapped to a backboard and carried down a corkscrew staircase…while I was screaming.

I also want to forget my first ride ever on a bedpan at the hospital. Bedpans have a way of humiliating you. I was in pain during my bedpan ride….but for some reason I didn’t scream.

Paramedic Kevin Keith from Durham County EMS and Mike Collier from Bethesda Fire and Rescue were on Medic 41 on Saturday. Upon their arrival they found their patient (me) in excruciating pain and unable to move.

Although I was dehydrated, Kevin was able to establish an IV access to re-hydrate me and get some pain medicine on board. He gave me all the morphine that he could, but it still did not touch the pain emitting from my lower back.

I wanted to be able to walk downstairs and get on the stretcher but my back was in spasms that I can’t begin to describe to you. The decision was made to call Durham FD Engine 13-B for assistance in getting me down the steps.

Kevin, I want to say thank you for taking such good care of me on Saturday. Your IV placement lasted for my entire hospital stay. You did everything that you could to alleviate my pain and make my trip to Durham Regional as smooth as possible. You are the Emergency Chaplains “Hometown Hero” for this week.

Special mention also goes to Mike Collier, EMT from Bethesda Fire and Rescue and to the crew on Engine 13-B. I hated calling you guys out at 3am, but every one of you are professionals at your job and courteous in every way. Thanks for helping me out.

My hospital stay was only 36 hours and it turns out that I was having an allergic reaction to a new medicine that I am taking. We don’t know if the back pain was part of the allergic reaction or maybe the pain was compounded by the reaction. I also had a virus at the same time.

While all of my doctors are still standing around scratching their heads as they try to figure out what was wrong with me, I’ll just sit at home for few days and try to recover. I will also remember what it is like to be a patient. I am always taking care of patients and it is awkward when I have to be taken care of. This past Saturday gave me a whole new perspective on patient care.

Thanks again to Kevin, Mike and Engine 13-B for taking care of me. You guys are the greatest!

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Note to Kevin: Sorry about the picture, but it was the only one that I could find of you.


Note to Readers: Kevin was posing for the camera doing an :Incredible Hulk" impersonation when this picture was taken.

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Hometown Hero--Justin Garner, Carthage PD

Cop Who Shot Active Shooter was Only Cop on Duty

On Sunday mornings in Mayberry, Andy and Barney would close down the courthouse and head to church with Aunt Bea, Opie, Gomer and even an occasional prisoner.

Carthage is a lot like Mayberry. Sure, times have changed...but Carthage is still a quiet little place. So quiet in fact that only one police officer is on duty on any given Sunday morning. Justin Garner was that officer on March 29th.

Sunday mornings are usually slow in Carthage. Folks that aren't in church are either asleep or quietly working around the house. No one would have ever suspected that an armed gunman had gone into Pinelake Rehab looking for his estranged wife and shooting anyone that he came in contact with.

Justin Garner answered the call. Some may call him foolish for entering the nursing home without backup. There is no doubt that he put his own life at risk--he has three wounds to prove that.

Robert Stewart had already shot and killed seven elderly patients and one employee when he was confronted by Corporal Garner. Although he was drawing fire from the gunman, Garner held his ground and returned fire, critically wounding Stewart and bringing the carnage to an end.

I believe that Robert Stewart was prepared to kill every person inside the nursing facility that day. Eight dead is too many...but the heroic actions of Justin Garner saved everyone else there.
Corporal Justin Garner of the Carthage Police Department is a hero in every right.

Thank you, Justin, for giving your life in service for the people of Carthage.

Chaplain Ralph
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March 31, 2009
CARTHAGE, N.C. (AP) — Justin Garner turned down a chance to join the state highway patrol so he could stay on his small hometown’s police force. In just five years, he’d already been named Officer of the Year. And when a call came in that a gunman was shooting up a nursing home, Garner was the only one on duty when seemingly everyone else in this town of 1,800 was at church.

The clean-cut outdoorsman with a passion for hunting and fishing raced to the Pinelake Health and Rehab Center. Armed with a .40-caliber Glock pistol, he entered the building to confront Robert Stewart, 45, in the hallway. Garner fired his weapon once, hitting Stewart in the chest, even though Garner had already been shot three times in his foot and leg.

A day later, Garner was being praised as a hero in this small town in North Carolina’s Sandhills region, about 60 miles southwest of Raleigh, for forging into the nursing home without waiting for backup to stop a man authorities say shot and killed eight people — many of them elderly and frail — inside.

“If that’s not heroism, I don’t know what is,” said Police Chief Chris McKenzie, who later added: “You can train all you want to, but it comes down to whether you have what it takes.”

Experts also took note. Nick Minzghor, whose business trains police and military personnel in Seattle, said a quick response to mass shootings is crucial, but that it’s not common for an officer by himself to be successful.

“This is one of the few instances nationwide where the lone officer took care of the bad guy,” said Minzghor, who’s also a police officer.

Garner, 25, grew up in the Carthage area like most of the town’s 18-officer police force, said McKenzie, who’s also a native. Garner, who is married, has been on the force for less than five years but already has been honored as the town’s Officer of the Year.

At one point, though, Garner nearly joined the North Carolina Highway Patrol before ultimately deciding to stay in Carthage, said the Rev. Tom Herndon, the chaplain for the police and fire departments. Herndon, who also is pastor of First Baptist Church of Carthage, described Garner as “a real clean-cut, handsome young fellow” who is fair to the people he serves.

“He’s one of the individuals who will give you a break if you happen to be speeding one mile an hour over the speed limit,” Herndon said, adding that his wife once received a warning from Garner though he didn’t know who she was.

McKenzie said Garner hunts and fishes whenever he gets the chance, and that he’s not surprised the officer stayed close to home.

“You don’t find too many country boys heading to the city (to become police),” McKenzie said. “They stay here to take care of their own.”

Seven nursing home residents and one of their caretakers were killed and three others, including Garner, were wounded. Stewart was charged with eight counts of first-degree murder.
McKenzie said Garner isn’t yet ready to speak publicly about the shootings. He was released from the hospital, but will need outpatient surgery, McKenzie said.

“He wants to sit at home with his family and rest. He almost died yesterday,” McKenzie said.

Life Lessons from the Family Dog

3-31-09
New York Times editor Dana Jennings writes every Tuesday about coping with an advanced form of prostate cancer.

Bijou, the family dog of Times editor Dana Jennings.

Our family dog started failing a couple of months ago. Her serious health problems began at about the same time I was coping with my own — finishing my radiation and hormone therapy for prostate cancer.

Since last summer, I’ve learned that my cancer is shockingly aggressive, and the surgery, radiation and hormone treatments have left me exhausted, incontinent and with an AWOL libido. These days I’m waiting for the first tests that will tell me the status of my health.
Even so, as I face my own profound health issues, it is my dog’s poor health that is piercing me to the heart. I’m dreading that morning when I walk downstairs and … well, those of us who love dogs understand that all dog stories end the same way.

Her full name is Bijou de Minuit (Jewel of Midnight) — my wife teaches French. She is a 12-year-old black miniature poodle, and she is, literally, on her last legs. Her hind quarters fly out from beneath her, her back creaks and cracks as she walks, she limps, she’s speckled with bright red warts the size of nickels, her snore is loud and labored (like a freight train chugging up some steep grade) and she spends most of the day drowsing on her pillow-bed next to the kitchen radiator.

Bijou’s medicine chest is impressive for a 23-pound dog: A baby dose of amoxicillin for chronic urinary tract infections; prednisone and Tramadol for pain; phenobarbital for seizures; Proin for incontinence – all of it wrapped in mini-slices of pepperoni.

She is, I realize, “just” a dog. But she has, nonetheless, taught me a few lessons about life, living and illness. Despite all her troubles, Bijou is still game. She still groans to her feet to go outside, still barks at and with the neighborhood dogs, is willing to hobble around the kitchen to carouse with a rubber ball — her shrub of a tail quivering in joy.

I know now that Bijou was an important part of my therapy as I recovered from having my prostate removed. I learned that dogs, besides being pets, can also be our teachers.
Human beings constantly struggle to live in the moment. We’re either obsessing over the past (”Gee, life would’ve been different if I’d only joined the Peace Corps.”), or obsessing over the future (”Gee, I hope my 401K holds up”). We forget that life, real life, is lived right now, in this very moment.

But living in the moment is something that dogs (and cancer patients) do by their very nature. Bijou eats when she’s hungry, drinks when she’s thirsty, sleeps when she’s tired and will still gratefully curl up in whatever swatch of sunlight steals through the windows.

She’d jump up onto my sickbed last summer, nuzzle me and ask for her ears and pointy snout to be scratched. It made both of us happy as she sighed in satisfaction. And she was the subject of one of our favorite family jokes as I recuperated: “You take the dog out. I have cancer.”

In spending so much time with Bijou, I began to realize that our dogs, in their carefree dogginess, make us more human, force us to shed our narcissistic skins. Even when you have cancer, you can’t be utterly self-involved when you have a floppy-eared mutt who needs to be fed, walked and belly-scratched. And you can’t help but ponder the mysteries of creation as you gaze into the eyes of your dog, or wonder why and how we chose dogs and they chose us.

Dogs also tell us – especially when we’re sick – of our own finitude. And, partly, that’s why we cry when they die, because we also know that all human-being stories end the same way, too.
Good dogs – and most dogs are good dogs – are canine candles that briefly blaze and shine, illuminating our lives. Bijou has been here with us for the past 12 years, reminding us that simple pleasures are the ones to be treasured: a treat, a game of fetch, a nose-to-the-ground stroll in the park.

Simple pleasures. As I lazed and dozed at home last summer after surgery, there was nothing sweeter to me in this world than to hear Bijou drinking from her water dish outside my door. It was if her gentle lap-lapping ferried me to waters of healing. I’ll miss her.