2ndShotBlog.com

Just three weeks ago the kid who lived next door was shot and killed. Not in the neighborhood. He was at a nightclub in the next town over. At 1 a.m. there was a fight in the parking lot. One of the guys in the fight went to his car, got a gun, and fired several shots at the man he was fighting. A stray bullet hit the 20 year old kid from next door. He was taken by helicopter to the same hospital trauma center that I was flown to.

He didn’t make it. He died at 4 a.m.

By all accounts, he wasn’t involved in the fight. Just an innocent bystander. I feel terrible. I’ve been composing this blog post in my head ever since. Something else happened this past weekend that made me decide to finally write it. I’ll get to that in a minute.

The kid was a mild irritant. He had an old Buick that he worked on incessantly. Painted metallic blue and silver, with lots of chrome, those hydraulics that would lift it up high off the wheels, and mufflers that made the engine LOUD. He thought he was cool driving that thing around. He looked ridiculous.

I feel terrible in part because I was just as ridiculous and probably far more irritating when I was his age. I had a black Camaro Z28 with a special after market stereo (remember 8 Track?), that I played LOUD. With my black aviator shades (that I wore even at night), I thought I was cool.

But I’ve lived my life. And I’m still alive. He’ll never meet a special girl, fall in love, have that girl gently wean him away from his childish endeavors, have a family and a career, and experience all the ups and downs that come with those.

The family next door immigrated here from Mexico. They’re hard working people. Even now, in the depth of this recession, they all have jobs. They’re up and out early in the morning. When they’re home they’re working on the house and the yard. I looked up their real estate record. They bought the house 12 years ago. They immigrated here and they worked hard and became legal residents. They had their little piece of the American dream. Now they also have a piece of the American nightmare.

This past weekend there was another shooting in downtown Sarasota. Three blocks from where I live. Right on Main St. at 9 p.m. on Saturday night, a half block away from a busy movie theater. There’s a small well-lit park where teenagers hang out. This 18 year old boy was parading around with a large Confederate flag. A black kid accused him of being a racist. An argument ensued. The black kid shot the kid with the flag. The wounded kid was flown to that same trauma center and he’s currently in critical but stable condition.

How ignorant to be parading around with a Confederate flag. Turns out the kid isn’t even a Southerner. He’s only been living here for a few years and is from Pennsylvania. But ignorance doesn’t deserve death. When you shoot somebody at close range, you’re trying to kill him.

When I read the above story in the newspaper, I decided to look up how much violent crime there is in Sarasota. Turns out, there’s a LOT. Take a look at this:

http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/fl/sarasota/crime/

I Googled ‘Sarasota Violent Crime’ and came up with a half dozen of these kinds of sites that rate the crime in different cities and towns. They all agree that Sarasota has one of the highest crime rates of anywhere in the US. More than almost anywhere in the first world.

I come back to “Why?” Can anybody tell me? What is it about Sarasota that causes it to have such a high rate of murders, rapes and violent assaults per capita? You can reply via commenting. Just click on the ‘Comment’ text that appears at the top of this post.

There are many issues that come into play around the shooting. This blog is meant to cover all of them. Right now, nothing much is happening re the judicial facet, or I’d address that. I think the first hearing is on April 3rd. So I’m going to give a little air time to my medical condition now.

I know nobody else is as interested in this topic as I am (maybe my mother), so I won’t dwell on it. This should be a non-issue shortly anyway.

I was given a blood transfusion when I was operated on following the shooting. I had lost so much blood, there really was no other choice… no other way to keep me alive. We’re all aware of the dangers of blood transfusions. They can result in hepatitis, AIDS or a number of other blood borne diseases. Chances are that the blood I received wasn’t tainted, and that I have nothing to worry about.

The ‘bad blood’ that I refer to in this post title isn’t about the transfusion, but rather my current complaint which is lack of energy, tiredness, dizziness and nausea. I’ve been told that this is a natural phase of the healing process. I have ‘hematomas’, which are like the scabs you get on a surface wound, but these are inside the body.

The bullet entered me in front, just below my belly button. It never exited, but it drilled through my ample mid-section and stopped when it hit the inside surface of the skin, in what is known in medical parlance as my left ‘love handle’. You can see where it hit because there’s a welt there.

Anyway, now that all the wounds and incisions inside me have mostly healed, those hematomas are breaking down. As they do, they release a lot of crap (another medical term) into my system. That’s what’s making me so tired. They’ll be gone soon and I should have just some physical therapy between me and a full recovery.

OK. Hopefully that’s the last of the medical updates. I will have more re the healthcare system, and I imagine those will be of wider interest.