Sources Cite Delay In Aid to Reporter: EMTs Thought Rosenbaum Was Drunk

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Sources Cite Delay In Aid to Reporter
EMTs Thought Rosenbaum Was Drunk
By Del Quentin Wilber
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 11, 2006; Page B02


D.C. emergency medical technicians treated David E. Rosenbaum as if he were intoxicated and not the victim of a beating and robbery Friday night, a misdiagnosis that delayed treatment for the longtime journalist, fire department sources said yesterday.

Rosenbaum, 63, a recently retired New York Times reporter and editor, was taking a walk near his home in upper Northwest Washington when he was apparently assaulted and robbed of his wallet, authorities said. Rosenbaum, who was not drunk, died Sunday at Howard University Hospital, authorities said. Police had made no arrests.

Rosenbaum died from blows to the head, body and extremities, according to the D.C. medical examiner's office, which yesterday ruled the case a homicide....

***

Police officers, who arrived quickly after the emergency call, thought Rosenbaum had suffered a medical problem, such as a seizure, officials said. They did not realize he was a crime victim, because he was wearing his watch and wedding band, and a portable radio was resting nearby.

Authorities said they did not learn that Rosenbaum's wallet was missing until he was evaluated at the hospital....Once they got to Howard University Hospital, the ambulance crew members told hospital workers they thought the man had been drinking, the sources said. Rosenbaum went through a triage area in the emergency room but did not appear to have been examined for at least an hour, the sources said. A hospital nurse did not begin to evaluate Rosenbaum until he began vomiting while on a stretcher in a hallway, the sources said....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/10/AR2006011001788.html

[babylonsister]

1. He still had his watch and ring? That sounds really fishy if this

was a real robbery...

[RubyDuby in GA]

5. I agree with you

I'm not one to generally put on the tin foil hat, but this sounds a robber left his watch, wedding band and a radio??? This robbery story doesn't wash with me.

[me b zola]

25. Any bets on whether the

radio was a nice little i-pod? What thief doesn't take an i-pod?

[SmokingJacket]

34. Right, I haven't even seen a portable RADIO in about 10 years. nt

[anotherdrew]

42. maybe his wallet was there on the ground, they just "missed" seeing it

he took his wallet out to hand to his attacker in an attempt to ward off what he thought was a mugging.

[cantstandbush]

7. Took the wallet to make it look like a suicide. I really question the

official story, espcially in light of the fact that this man was a critic of the administration. If we kill journalists in Iraq what would stop this government from doing it here?

[rinsd]

18. Huh? "to make it look like a suicide"?

[babylonsister]

32. I imagine he meant 'murder'. nt

[cantstandbush]

39. Thanks. I did mean murder. I am unraveling. n/t

[xxqqqzme]

38. what's 2 stop them?

so far absolutely NOTHING and, it appears absolutely NO ONE gives a rats ass!

[rinsd]

19. On the flip side....

...if this guy was important enough to be rubbed out and one is going to the trouble of making this look like a robbery, wouldn't it be a more thorough job?

[shance]

23. How much more thorough do you need? He's dead isn't he?

n/t

[rinsd]

24. Playing devil's advocate....

If you are attempting to make it look like a robbery, you would take everything.

If you were robbing the guy, after you had his wallet you may not bother with the watch and jewelry unless they were obviously valuable. And even then you have to expose yourself further by pawning those items for pennies on the dollar.

I'm not saying this is not out of the ordinary, I just find it strange that people think this was obviously a sham because the wallet is missing but other items were not.

[CJCRANE]

29. If it was a sham

then the assailants would have had even more reason to make a quick getaway. Stealing a wallet would be enough to make it look like a robbery.

[niyad]

2. this is disgusting--they "thought he was drunk"? how ******* incompetent

ARE these people? I hope his family sues the hell out of everyone involved.

[DeepModem Mom]

4. This is an AWFUL story -- "he was disoriented and tried unsuccessfully...

to get up." That's why they thought he was drunk, I guess. Poor guy.

[savemefromdumbya]

3. Hello?

"Police officers, who arrived quickly after the emergency call, thought Rosenbaum had suffered a medical problem, such as a seizure, officials said. They did not realize he was a crime victim, because he was wearing his watch and wedding band, and a portable radio was resting nearby." dumb or dumber?

A seizure? Blows on his body, head? Sounds very fishy to me?

[fishnfla]

6. Wouldn't they check for his wallet right off-to make ID?

even if they thought he was drunk? Something wrong here

[MakeItSo]

8. His wallet was stolen

The alleged muggers left his gold watch and ring, however.

If you were gonna knock someone out for crack, wouldn't you just bang him on the head with something? I wonder why they decided to hit him all over the body as well?

Anger management issues?

Rosenbaum was a fine reporter, with an ability to cull through vast reams of data in the National Archives and find innaresting stuff. His latest article on Alito's views re: wiretapping was particularly eye-opening.

PROMIS not to tell anyone :)

[SmokingJacket]

35. Good point. nt

[BikeWriter]

9. A refinery clinic thought my exe's Dad was drunk...

He died of a massive stroke.

[progressivebydesign]

10. It's possible the wallet could have been stolen after a seizure..

or that he left the house without it. That would have been the thought of the emergency people, if he showed no signs of visible trauma.

[wordpix]

11. but he did show signs of trauma if he had blows to his head and body

sounds like incompentence to me. Also, I don't doubt it was a robbery, DC is a crime-ridden city.

[DeepModem Mom]

12. Strange, from the article --

"There were no apparent signs of major trauma to his head, police and fire officials said. One police official said that only a 'small bump' was visible on his head."

[redqueen]

13. So he was mugged and beaten, but they left his watch & ring.

Curiouser and curiouser...

[pop goes the weasel]

14. happens all the time

People with diabetes, CP, Parkinsons, mental illness, etc., are often assumed to be drunk or on drugs, and treated roughly by police or inadequately by medical personnel because of that.

[SmokingJacket]

36. That's really tragic.

We need to pay cops and emergency people more and get them better trained, if this is really the case.

We could use some of that extra dough the fed has been printing up...

[MrPrax]

15. Someone thinks fouplay...

Was NYT’s David Rosenbaum Assassinated?

The blogger Xymphora makes several good points about the supposed mugging-murder of the New York Times’ recently retired journalist, David Rosenbaum, most notably the fact the crime did not resemble a normal mugging. Thus we must consider the possibility that Rosenbaum was assassinated for reasons that are not clear and probably never will be. Xymphora speculates that Rosenbaum “might reveal some of the secrets behind the odd relationship of the Times to the Bush Administration (holding stories of extreme national importance back for a year, and engaging in discussion of what news is ‘fit to print’), or behind the campaign of lies told by the Times to help the Bush Administration trick the American people into the attack on Iraq.”


As well, it should be noted that Rosenbaum’s final Times piece, published in late December, revealed that Samuel Alito Jr., Bush’s Supreme Court nominee, had written a 1984 memorandum as a government lawyer in the Reagan administration “arguing that top officials should not be subject to lawsuits in any in circumstances, including when they knowingly violated the law.” Alito’s memo “offered recommendations concerning a lawsuit against a former attorney general, John N. Mitchell, over a wiretap he had authorized in 1970 without a court’s permission,” Rosenbaum wrote.

continued

Read the rest of this rather unconvincing first attempt...maybe better ones will shake loose

Another Day In the Empire

[AngryAmish]

16. Sounds that the family has a nice medical malpractice case

[yodermon]

17. this is Not Possible.

It is not known whether a quicker response or a more accurate diagnosis would have made any difference, because Rosenbaum's head injury was so severe

yet

There were no apparent signs of major trauma to his head, police and fire officials said. One police official said that only a "small bump" was visible on his head.

and

the ambulance crew members told hospital workers they thought the man had been drinking, the sources said. Rosenbaum went through a triage area in the emergency room but did not appear to have been examined for at least an hour, the sources said. A hospital nurse did not begin to evaluate Rosenbaum until he began vomiting while on a stretcher in a hallway, the sources said.

wtf, wtf, wtf???

1) Is it possible to DIE from a "severe head injury" WITHOUT there being "signs of trauma to his head"??
In what universe? Is is possible for a severe head injury to Not Bleed Copiously? Is it possible for someone to experience a SEVERE and ultimately FATAL HEAD INJURY without (i) Police officers, (ii) Firefighters, (iii) Ambulance Paramedics, nor (iv) FUCKING TRIAGE NURSES EVEN DIAGNOSING THE CONDITION?

2) The only explanation I can summon is
(A)All of the above Police Officers, Firefighters, Ambulance Paramedics, and Triage Nurses are either
(i) massively incompetent or (ii) lying.
(B)He maintained his SEVERE HEAD INJURY in the hospital, after triage but before a Doctor's diagnosis.
(C)He was mostly exsanguinated, a la David Kelly, thru a "small bump on his head" prior to any first responders' notification :eyes:
(D)Some "anonymous source" is Fucking Lying.

Any way you cut it, this is fishy fishy fishy.

:wtf:

[nashville_brook]

20. this stinks

[Corgigal]

21. asked hubby about this

he went to lots of person down calls. He mentioned he never went to an assault call, where the victim didn't wet his pants and the smell is absolute. Cops know when they are dealing with a drunk but this article mentions the cops thought a seizure but the EMS workers thought drunk.
Hospital is at fault because all they had to do is draw blood to find that out.

I personally hate Howard University Hospital but it's a personal reason.

[katinmn]

31. EMTs, cops, firefighters and hosp staff all failed him

Screw-ups happen but this is ridiculous.

Poor guy.

[w8liftinglady]

22. kicking

[burythehatchet]

26. all you darn conspiracy theorists

you make us liberals look like such moonbats. Gawd I wish you'd stop and just accept the fact that the guy was just robbed by people whgo hated watches and rings.

[MakeItSo]

27. conspiracy theorizing = thinking about something involving > 1 person

Two people robbing and killing a person amounts a conspiracy. So join the club, my friend.

What gets my goat is when people use red herring catch phrases to stifle legitimate discussion about substantive issues.

Let's get more info. on the credit card charge made after his death. Let's get an autopsy report, including a toxicology report. Let's see if police can locate the vehicle witnesses said they saw nearby.

To get clear answers to these questions will put the nut jobs in their place, regardless of which side they are on presently.

[joeunderdog]

28. You must have inside information that corroborates your story.

Otherwise, yours is just a theory, too. You're entitiled to your theory just like everyone else.

Brought to you by...
the conspiracists who said "there are no WMD's"
the conspiracists who said "Gore Won."
the conspiracists who said "Bush Knew."

[burythehatchet]

33. sorry, forgot the sarcasm icon.

This reporter was offed just like so many other ememies of this fascist regime. Long live Paul Wellstone's spirit.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

41. The sarcasm was pretty self-evident to most of us.

[katinmn]

30. Left on a stretcher in the hallway till he started puking

Rosenbaum went through a triage area in the emergency room but did not appear to have been examined for at least an hour, the sources said. A hospital nurse did not begin to evaluate Rosenbaum until he began vomiting while on a stretcher in a hallway, the sources said.

[SmokingJacket]

37. I dislike jumping to tinfoily conclusions...

and think this really could be a situation bungled by the robbers AND the rescue people, but...

I WAS sitting around waiting for Bushco to wreak their revenge on the NYTimes for the wiretapping story. They always -- ALWAYS -- get some kind of revenge on the people who go against their wishes.

[anotherdrew]

40. bullshit - you can smell a drunk from 5 feet if you're sober

this was a hit as far as I'm concerned. Something caused those EMT's to jump to what was a clearly unsupported assumption that should have been obviously wrong. How many times has this happened before, there should be statistics.