Tales of the Village Rabbi by Harvey M. Tattelbaum

Author:Harvey M. Tattelbaum
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2009-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Pothole Paradox

He was a retired colleague. He called me early in the week.

I could hear it in his voice: the terrible distress and anxiety; the humility with which he was asking a favor, the hope and despair in the same jumble of sentences and breath.

His daughter had just given birth to a beautiful baby boy. But the baby seemed to be doomed. Meconium aspiration: I had never heard the words before, but they mean that the baby in the womb passes feces that are absorbed into its lungs, a condition that after birth can asphyxiate the infant. Part of the treatment was to keep the baby totally sedated, near comatose. If the lungs could not be cleared, the next step would be drastic, invasive surgery on the little one’s thorax.

For this, much blood was needed. I had once called for blood donations at a Shabbat service for an emergency and the response was heartwarming and wonderful. I told him not to worry about blood. I would announce the emergency call on Friday night and there would be plenty of donations.

I felt his sigh of relief and accepted his warm thanks. I made some calls to be sure that my response would not go unheeded. The answers were humane and caring.

On Thursday he called again. His voice was upbeat. “Don’t make an emergency appeal from the pulpit,” he said. “There’s no need for blood because there was no need for surgery.”

Research on the part of the staff at the hospital discovered that a unique vacuum-like machine could help. That machine was in another hospital way uptown. An ambulance arrived to transport the little boy to the other hospital. He was strapped into the small pediatric gurney and the trip began.

New York City, especially in winter, can claim more potholes in its streets than any city in the world. It has to do with the seepage of moisture beneath the asphalt and the tremendous pressures exerted by the repeated freezing and melting of the water. The ambulance driver was as careful as he could be as he was well aware of his precious cargo. But he could not avoid every single pothole. The ambulance bumped along, at times mercilessly; or was it mercifully? The constant jostling and rattling, the continuing bumping and grinding of the vehicle dislodged the meconium clogging the infant’s lungs. He vomited it all up and out. The roughness of the ride on New York’s Streets possibly proved more effective than the most precise, sensitive technical medical engineering that the human mind could devise. The baby was now breathing well and subsequent x-rays showed that his lungs were clear. He was saved.

After that amazing turn of events, I was one Manhattan Village dweller who would never again complain about the condition of New York City’s roads.

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