on something way beyond Maxo, the guards, the medic, John Pratt and all the others around him.
“He’s not cooperating,” the medic said. For a moment Maxo wasn’t sure whether the medic was talking about him or his father.
“His eyes are open and he’s not unconscious,” added the medic. “I still think he’s faking, but we’ll take him to the clinic.”
A stretcher was brought and my uncle placed on it.
Pratt asked Officer Castro if they could continue the credible fear interview at the clinic.
No, he was told. That was against the rules.
I was on the phone with the medical transport service that was taking my father to Columbia Presbyterian when John Pratt called to tell me that my uncle had become ill. I was expecting good news, great news even. Before Pratt could even speak, I wanted to say, “Where do I go? How do I get him?”
“Your uncle became ill during the credible fear interview.” Pratt’s solid voice was shaken. There was even a hint of horror in it.
“They’ve taken him to the clinic at Krome,” he said. “I’m in the lobby, waiting to see if we can continue the interview in a while. Mr. Kurzban is making calls to the Miami district office to see if your uncle can receive a humanitarian parole.”
Later that morning, in the Krome medical unit, my uncle’s condition worsened and according to Krome records, he was transported to Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital with shackles on his feet. That same morning was the first time in nine weeks that my father had been out of his house. It was a crisp autumn day in New York and most of the leaves had already fallen off the trees. Speeding down the Prospect Expressway toward Manhattan, my father felt every stop and turn, every painful jolt and bounce of the ride in his bones. Still, between coughing spells, he told my mother and Bob, “At least I’m outside.”
Being outside was all my father got out of the visit. The lung specialist who saw him made him take off his shirt, listened to his labored breathing, and asked him if he had a DNR.
“What’s a DNR?” my father asked Bob in Creole.
“It’s a piece of paper that says if you die, you don’t want to be brought back to life and kept alive by machines,” Bob explained.
“No,” my father told the doctor. “I don’t want to be kept alive by machines. There’s already been enough suffering.”
Let the Stars Fall
My uncle’s medical records indicate that he arrived in the emergency room at Jackson Memorial Hospital around 1:00 p.m. with an intravenous drip in progress from Krome. He was evaluated by a nurse practitioner at 1:10 p.m., his pulse (80), temperature (97.0), blood pressure (169/78) checked and noted. At 2:00 p.m., he signed, in an apparently firm hand, a patient consent form stating, “I [he did not fill in his name in the blank spot] consent to undergo all necessary tests, medication, treatments and other procedures in the course of the study, diagnosis and treatment of my illness(es) by the medical staff and other agents and/or employees of the Public Health Trust/Jackson Memorial Hospital (PHT/JMH) and the University of Miami School of Medicine, including medical students.”
At 3:24 p.m., blood and urine samples were taken. His urine analysis showed some blood and a high level of glucose. His CBC, or complete blood count test, displayed a higher than normal number of white blood cells, which hinted at a possible infection. The test also showed elevated bilirubin or abnormal gallbladder and liver functions.
At 4:00 p.m., during a more thorough evaluation by the nurse practitioner, he complained of acute abdominal pain, nausea and loss of appetite. A new IV was administered. Chest X-rays and abdominal films were taken. Pneumonia and intestinal obstruction were ruled out.
At 5 p.m., he was transferred to the hospital’s prison area, Ward D. His Ward D admission note, which was also prepared by a registered nurse, remarks, “No acute distress, ambulatory. To IV hydrate and reevaluate. Patient closely observed.”
Once in Ward D, where no lawyers or family members are allowed to visit, and where prisoners are restrained to prevent escapes, to protect the staff, the guards and the prisoners from one another, his feet were probably shackled once more, just as, according to Krome records, they’d been during the ambulance ride. He was given another IV at 10:00 p.m., at which time it was noted by the nurse on duty that he was “resting quietly.” He was to be further observed and followed up, she added.
His vital signs were checked again at midnight, then at 1:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. the next day, when his temperature was 96 degrees, his heart rate a dangerous 114 beats per minute and his blood pressure 159/80. At 9:00 a.m. he was given another IV and 5 mg of Vasotec to help lower his blood pressure. By 11:00 a.m., his heart rate had decreased to 102 beats per minute, still distressingly high for an eighty-one-year-old man with his symptoms.
The records indicate that he was seen for the first time by a physician at 1:00 p.m., exactly twenty-four hours after he’d been brought to the emergency room. The physician, Dr. Hernandez, noted his test results, namely his high white cell count, his elevated liver enzymes and his persistent abdominal pain. He then ordered an abdominal ultrasound, which was performed at 4:56 p.m. The ultrasound showed intra- abdominal fluid around my uncle’s liver and sludge, or thickened bile, in his gallbladder. Before the test was administered, my uncle was given another patient consent form to sign. He signed it less comprehensibly than the first, next to a stamped hospital declaration of “PATIENT UNABLE TO SIGN.”
At 7:00 p.m., after more than twenty hours of no food and sugarless IV fluids, my uncle was sweating profusely and complained of weakness. He was found to be hypoglycemic, with a lower than normal blood sugar level of 42 mg/dl. The doctor on duty prescribed a 5 percent dextrose drip and twenty minutes later, my uncle’s blood glucose stabilized at 121 mg/dl. It was then noted that he was awake and alert and his mental response “appropriate.”
At 7:55 p.m., his heart rate rose again, this time to 110 beats per minute. An electrocardiogram (EKG) was performed at 8:16 p.m. The next note on the chart shows that he was found pulseless and unresponsive by an immigration guard at 8:30 p.m. There is no detailed account of “the code” or the sixteen minutes between the time he was found unresponsive and the time he was pronounced dead, at 8:46 p.m. Only a quick scribble that cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) “continued for 11 mins.”
Aside from the time he had throat cancer, my uncle nearly died on one other occasion. It was the summer of 1975, and I was six years old. He was stricken with malaria. Fever, chills, nausea and diarrhea had sent him to his doctor, who’d hospitalized him.
I hadn’t seen him in several days when Tante Denise brought Nick, Bob and me to the hospital to visit him. When we walked into his small private room, he was curled in a fetal position, and though he was wrapped in several blankets, was shivering. His face was ashen and gray and his eyes the color of corn.
“The children are here,” Tante Denise had told him.
He seemed not to see us. Grunting, he closed his eyes as if to protect them from the ache coursing through the rest of his body. When he opened his eyes again, he glared at us as if wondering what we were doing there.
“I brought the children,” Tante Denise said again. “You asked for them.”
He looked at each one of us carefully, then said, “Ti moun,
