I said, “Yeah, about that. See, I’m removing myself as the treating physician due to a possible conflict of interest.”
“Oh,” said Dr. Zimmerman, “You know the man personally?”
“No, I’m the reason he is unconscious with a GCS of three. I sort of hit him in the left temple. Hard.”
“Alright then, that would do it, and it answered what was going to be my next question. I’m looking forward to hearing the story later, mate. Now step back and let me do my thing.”
I liked Dr. Zimmerman. We enjoyed working together and had a very comfortable banter. I teased Dr. Zimmerman about getting some exercise before giving him the rest of my brief assessment. I watched as the doctor and Ms. Rhodes performed a more thorough assessment, shaking my head as I noticed that the patient’s pupils were fixed and dilated on one side. Not a good sign.
I looked around to see if I was needed elsewhere. There was nothing for me to do, so I waited, preparing myself for the inevitable. Police would arrive soon, and they would want to hear my explanation. Hopefully, they would understand that I had acted in defense of Dr. Witmer and her staff and it would all be over soon. Hopefully. Experience had taught me that it would probably not be that easy.
***
Dr. Zimmerman directed the transfer of his unconscious patient, now secured on a spinal board, down to radiology for an emergency CT scan. Obviously, Dr. Zimmerman and I shared a common working diagnosis.
It took only a few minutes for Dr. Zimmerman to assess the patient and get the right personnel present for the transfer to radiology, yet a small crowd of on-lookers had already assembled murmuring and watching in astonishment. Dr. Lowe, the Chief of Medicine of Memphis Memorial, was among the group; he was the only one scowling. My brow furrowed in disgust as I realized a meeting with Dr. Lowe would be inevitable after today’s events.
My first order of business was to calm down, though. Still jittery from the adrenaline rush, I could not sit and relax, yet I was trying hard to avoid pacing like a caged animal. Something I didn’t want to be doing when the police arrived. It seemed essential that I appeared calm and in control.
Dr. Zimmerman was leaving with his patient as the police arrived. Unlike the security officer, the three male officers looked seasoned and efficient. They knew their roles. The youngest officer cordoned off the area, politely moving the crowd back while another officer attended to the man leaving on a stretcher. As a precautionary method, the officer insisted the man, now identified as Tom Harty according to the ID in his wallet, be cuffed to the stretcher. Dr. Zimmerman gave me a look that said: he won’t need it, but what the hell, it isn’t hurting anything. I nodded in agreement.
The elder of the group, a sergeant, focused on me. “You appear to be sort of in charge around here, mister…”
“Doctor, Dr. McCain. I hit the man leaving on the stretcher if that’s what you mean. Does that put me in charge?”
“Maybe, maybe not, but it definitely means you are the one I want to talk to first. What happened here?”
“Full story or the condensed version?”
“Condensed for now.”
When I provided him with my brief explanation of the earlier events, he didn’t have trouble processing. Nor was he alarmed when I nonchalantly handed him the gun and magazine. Dr. Lowe stepped in the picture during the conversation, introducing himself as the “man in charge” to the sergeant.
After I had finished the story, the sergeant turned to address Dr. Lowe. “Like I told Dr. McCain, I am Sgt. Walters. I’m sure you heard the story just now, and although I know it’s going to be an inconvenience, I would like to question Dr. McCain down at the station. Get the whole story.”
Dr. Lowe was nodding in agreement.
“I will leave Officer Ferguson here to get full statements from Dr. Witmer and Miss, um, her receptionist. I’m going to have a female officer come down and question the young lady that was threatened directly by the suspect and any other witnesses. Officer Thatcher will stay with Mr. Harty. Any questions?”
Dr. Lowe replied, “No, no questions, Sgt. Walters. Thank you for your quick response and efficient handling of this difficult and unfortunate incident. The hospital is very appreciative.” Turning to me, he continued, “Dr. McCain, feel free to take as much time as needed with Sgt. Walters, and take as much time as you need to emotionally recover from today’s traumatic experience. Obviously, do not worry about working today.” Dr. Lowe’s syrupy sweet tone lacked sincerity and seemed to be more for Sgt. Walters’ benefit than for mine.
I replied, “Thank you, Dr. Lowe. This will probably take only an hour or so. I will be back after that to work the rest of today’s shift.”
“We will get someone to cover for you, so you needn’t worry about work. Besides, this morning’s events will require a meeting with members of the hospital board to discuss any liability issues. I would obviously like to talk with you later, perhaps tomorrow morning.”
I expected a personal meeting with Dr. Lowe; however, a board of directors meeting seemed completely unnecessary. Today was not the first time the police had been called to Memphis Memorial; in fact, in a city the size of Memphis, police visiting an emergency room can seem a little routine. Nor was it even the first time I was involved in a physical altercation with a patient. More than once I had been needed to help restrain a psychotic patient or one under the influence of alcohol or some other type of chemical dependency. I shrugged my shoulders and directed my attention to Sgt. Walters.
“Sergeant, how does thirty minutes sound?”
“Sounds fine, Dr. McCain.”
The easy part was over. Tom Harty was no longer a threat and no one else had gotten hurt, so it was a success. Now all the questions would begin along with the endless assessments and others second guessing my handling of the situation. The hard part would soon begin, but this time I was ready.
***
The fight or flight response. Academically, I knew it was an automatic physiological response to danger initiated by the sympathetic nervous system. I also knew that the process originated in the amygdala of the brain and resulted in the release of numerous hormones to boost energy and prepare the body for whichever muscular action is necessary. I had picked fight. I usually did.
The sympathetic nervous system had performed flawlessly. But now I was wound up like a cheap watch. Thirty minutes to walk to Sgt. Walters’ office was probably 15 minutes more than I needed to get there; however, the walk would do me some good. It would give me an opportunity to burn off some of the remaining excess energy from the adrenaline and glucose cocktail served up by my adrenal glands.
The walk also gave me to time to consider the questions that might be leveled towards me once I got to his office. My mind was imagining him questioning my handling of the situation. He would want to know why I didn’t let security handle it. He might even want to know if I could have avoided hitting Mr. Harty. But Sgt. Walters wasn’t there, I was. It was my call, and I was not going to let someone twist my words around this time. Not like the first time. I was smarter, and older, and wiser. And experienced. I would keep my emotions hidden this time.
I also had time to consider why Mr. Harty remained unresponsive.
***
I liked cops. I had experience with cops. Before medical school, I even helped provide martial arts training for a police force while living in Huntsville, Alabama. That did not mean that I always trusted their judgment, which is why I didn’t know what to expect from Sgt. Walters. Hopefully, he was being truthful about simply wanting to get my statement. I did not want the visit to turn into an interrogation.
Sgt. Walters’ office was easy enough to find. As I approached his desk exactly 30 minutes after our last meeting, he glanced at the clock on the wall. “Nice timing.” He was smiling, which seemed like a good sign. Smiling back, I reminded myself to stay in control if Sgt. Walters started to question my tactics. He heard I had the day off and promised not to take up much of my time. He star
ted by requesting basic information: full name, address, phone number, etc. As I rattled off the information, he arched his brow quizzically when he heard my full name. I had grown used to the look, yet I still didn’t like it.
“Thanks, Dr. McCain, how about age, height, weight, eye color.”
“I’ll be 34 next month on the 16th. Six-four, 235, green eyes, and I’m sure you can tell this crazy mop of hair is brown.”
“You do have some crazy hair, Doc. They let you wear it like that?”
“Nobody has ever told me I couldn’t.”
“Well, you are kind of intimidating looking. I wouldn’t want to argue with you about your hair. So what do you do at the hospital?”
“I work in the ER.”
“What’s with the slacks and sport coat? Where’s the scrubs?”
“I walk to work every day and don’t like to wear the scrubs outside of the hospital. Personally, I don’t like scrubs at all; you said it yourself, I can look pretty intimidating. But they make the most sense in the ER.”
“I had you figured for sports medicine. You are built like a professional athlete.”
“Chalk one up for lucky genetics; my parents were both world class athletes.”
His eyes darted to his left, highly indicative of memory access, but he obviously came up with nothing. Not a surprise. I did not want to appear rude, but I was wondering why he wanted to interview me in his office. He could have got my statement at the hospital.
He replied, “I could have, true.”
“But?”
“But it looked like Mr. Harty was hurt pretty bad, and you were the person most intimately involved in the altercation at the hospital, so I wanted a very thorough statement for my records.”
“That sounds fair enough, yet I can’t help wondering if I should have a lawyer present for this.”
“If you want one, although I’m not looking at recommending charges against you if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“No, but a superior might. Or an aggressive district attorney.”
Sgt. Walters acknowledged the truth in my statement, yet added that it would be unlikely. I had just stopped a man in the act of a major felony. Waving a gun around no less. “I’m not sure how they do things where you’re from, but down here in the South, most people, including lawyers and judges, would probably just congratulate you on a job well done.”
I had lived in the South long enough to know that he had a point.
“Pardon me for being cautious, Sergeant. It’s just that I’ve been down this road before many years ago, and it was a mess and a half before it was all done. Plus, you guys always remind people after they have been arrested that anything they say or do can be held against them in a court of law; however, you don’t remind them that everything they say or do before getting arrested can be held against them as well.”
“You have some familiarity with Miranda rights?”
“I do.”
Sgt. Walters stared intently at me for a few seconds looking for something. He was sizing me up. “Like I said, I’m not looking for evidence against you; I’m just trying to figure out what Mr. Harty was doing at the hospital before you stopped him.”
Would he still feel that way if my suspicions about Tom Harty’s condition were true? I saw the fixed and dilated pupil. If my diagnosis was correct, he had a condition with a 60 to 80 percent mortality rate.
“You mind if I record this?”
“I don’t mind.”
And I didn’t mind. Having a recording of my story with all the voice inflections seemed a much better way to prevent something being taken out of context.
While setting up the recorder, Walters said, “I find it ironic that an emergency room doctor hit a guy so hard that he needed to call an emergency room doctor.” I was not sure how to respond to that statement, leaving an awkward silence in the room that the sergeant seemed to acknowledge. “Sorry, sick cop humor. I can see you in emergency care; you seem like one cool customer. You don’t look the least bit rattled by the earlier confrontation, and you seem comfortable around firearms as well, and around cops. Were you a military doctor or medic?”
“Good guess. I am ex-military, but not a doctor or medic.”
“GI bill, then college and med school?”
“No. I was a Navy officer that worked as an aide for an Admiral involved in intelligence matters. I got out early after an injury.”
Sgt. Walters said, “Sounds interesting.”
“Not really, I got to see a lot of really boring classified stuff and sat in a lot of meetings.”
“Then how did you get injured?” he asked.
“Paper cuts…lots of paper cuts. It was horrible. I cannot lick an envelope to this day.”
Sgt. Walters gave me a cynical smile before sitting down and motioning that he was ready to start. I found Sgt. Walters to be a very efficient interviewer. He asked just the right questions, open-ended, not leading questions. I was impressed. It was my opinion that half of the process of getting the diagnosis right on a patient was taking a good history. He could teach a class on getting a good history. He was especially interested in how and why I first suspected Mr. Harty. I described the whole story. How I had first spotted Tom Harty, how I had tracked him through the hospital, and how I had disarmed him. No mention that the gun wasn’t cocked and the safety was on. It took effort not to smile when I realized Sgt. Walters was not going to follow up on that detail. I also left out the part about my inner voice. The whole process took about fifteen minutes.
My mind kept drifting back to the first time I was involved in a situation like this. What a mess for my family and me. I wished I could read Sgt. Walter’s thoughts. I couldn’t.
“Thank you, Dr. McCain. Your description of the events was highly detailed. I felt like I was there watching the whole thing unfold. And thank you for letting me record this; I would have gotten writer’s cramp.”
“No problem.”
“I got to know one thing, though. In the elevator, you started to change your mind about Mr. Harty. Was it really his odor that made you suspicious enough to pause and watch him again?”
“Yeah. It just didn’t fit; going to a pediatrician’s office smelling like that. Then the bouncing sealed it for me.”
“The bouncing?”
“Yeah, I knew right then he was up to no good. I just wish I had listened to my initial gut feeling.”
“Doctor, I doubt if 99 percent of most police officers would have been tipped off by Tom Harty’s behavior.” Sgt. Walters made an obvious point of turning off the tape recorder before continuing. “Only one thing about your story doesn’t hold water.”
“Yeah, what part?”
“I’d bet a month’s pay you are holding back on what you did in the Navy. Oh, I believe you were in intelligence, I just don’t believe that part about the meetings and paper cuts. Don’t worry; my suspicion will not be in the report. And, Dr. McCain, if you ever get tired of being a doctor, you need to look into being a detective.”
“I will keep that in mind.”
There was a brief knock on the door. Officer Ferguson entered, back from questioning Dr. Witmer and her receptionist; a female officer was still taking statements from other witnesses. Officer Ferguson had a working theory in place after talking to Dr. Witmer, and it was obvious he wanted to talk. It was equally obvious that Sgt. Walters wanted to hear the theory.
Ferguson discovered that Dr. Witmer had called Child Protective Services last week for suspected child abuse in the Harty family. She named Tom Harty as her chief suspect after hearing stories from the child’s mother. Dr. Witmer had never met Mr. Harty, which is why she did not recognize him. Ferguson guessed that Harty went to the hospital to teach Dr. Witmer a lesson. “I guess we will find out when he comes to, if he comes to. Thatcher told me that Harty is still unconscious. He has some kind of swelling around the brain or something. Man, you say you hit him with your elbow, and only once? What is your darn elbow made of anyway?
”
I decided to let Ferguson’s questions be rhetorical and countered with my own. “Did you hear anyone mention a subdural hematoma?”
“Yeah, that’s what they called it. The doctor made it sound serious.”
“It is. High mortality rate, somewhere around 60 to 80 percent.”
Walters said, “Sounds like you suspected it, Dr. McCain.”
“I did. So, does that change anything with you, Sgt. Walters?”
“Not as far as I can tell. He had a gun, you hit him in the head, he didn’t hurt anyone. Sounds like a job well done to me. How about you, Ferguson?”
“Give the man a medal, Sarge. But that’s just my opinion.”
Walters said, “Once again, Doctor, thanks for your time. I don’t expect you will hear from us again unless Ferguson convinces someone to actually give you that medal.”
We both stood and shook hands. “By the way,” I added, “My friends call me L.T.”
“Thanks, Dr. McCain.”
CHAPTER 3
I loved Downtown Memphis. I lived walking distance from Beale Street and the Medical District while most of my colleagues lived in Germantown or Collierville, towns with high median incomes, good school districts, and country clubs. However, I preferred to live among some of the best Southern barbecue and blues music the world has to offer. Being walking distance to work was a great bonus. Many of my colleagues thought I was crazy. I could not convince them I had found that Beale Street, and its immediate area, seemed somehow insulated from the racial tensions in the city. Maybe it was the music that transcended racial divides. Where else could Elvis have stolen rock and roll from the black blues artists and they loved him anyway.
After leaving the police station, I enjoyed the liberation of an aimless walk through Downtown Memphis and along the Mississippi River waterfront, thinking while my feet beat out a cathartic rhythm for almost an hour. Despite the randomness of my walk, I found myself outside LeClair’s. I suspected my subconscious had guided me there, or maybe it was the gnawing hunger in my gut. Either way, it seemed apropos; if a good walk had been liberating, then talking to an ex-soldier should be equally therapeutic.
Memphis Legend Page 2